


egg tooth

by painintheassnojutsu



Category: Naruto
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, BAMF Women, EXTREMELY self-indulgent, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Jounin HQ Shenanigans, Kurenai Adopts the Konoha Twelve, M/M, Mother Hen Shiranui Genma, Mother Hen Yuuhi Kurenai, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, References to Depression, Responsible-ish Adults, Sakura Has Two Moms Now, Swearing, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-11 15:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14701359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/painintheassnojutsu/pseuds/painintheassnojutsu
Summary: “I’m worried,” Kurenai says. It is past midnight, and she’s over by the lone table in Jōnin HQ, slouched over a cup of coffee and a sheaf of papers. “About the recently-graduated genin.”Kurenai doesn't think that most of the Rookie Nine should have graduated. There are issues upon issues uponissuesthat she's seeing here, and it makes her want to give up—but she won't. She will take these genin, and she will help them break out of their shells.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and welcome to the first chapter of _egg tooth_!
> 
> This fic is pretty much just a spitefic (I'm looking at you, Kishimoto) and self-indulgence but we still hope you guys really enjoy! We wanted to see a fic where everyone got the character development they deserved _and_ where the adults were actually responsible and cared for the kids they were put in charge of! So—this was born.
> 
> However . . . this fic fucking crawls, just like kindred spirits. It's an extremely self-indulgent, really slow-paced reimagine of canon. We wanted to focus on character interactions and growth rather than plot.
> 
> If you enjoy reading, please leave a comment and kudos!
> 
> (Somehow, despite aiming for about 4k, this chapter ended up 8k more djdufjdjsns sorry if long chapters bother you! If you feel like they do, please give us some feedback and a goal to aim for in the next chapter!)
> 
> ON HIATUS — posting should resume around summer of 2019.....or maybe autumn this fic is fucking hard — i’m so sorry for the long wait!!

“I’m worried,” Kurenai says. It is past midnight, and she’s over by the lone table in Jōnin HQ, slouched over a cup of coffee and a sheaf of papers. Other than herself, Shiranui Genma is the only person here. “About the recently-graduated genin.”

 “Why? Is there something wrong with them?” Shiranui asks. He shuffles over to where her chair is, peering over Kurenai’s shoulder so that he can see what she’s looking at. “Are those . . . mental evaluations? Student files?” 

“ _Yes,_ ” she breathes. “To both of your questions. Here, take a look at this,” she says, sliding a sheet of paper out to her left so that he can read it more easily. “Uchiha Sasuke’s file. Tell me what you see.” 

“Uchiha Sasuke. Only survivor of the Uchiha massacre. Put under a Genjutsu by Uchiha Itachi, missing-nin, and forced to watch family members die repeatedly. Shows antisocial behavior, fixated on taking revenge on his brother. Direct quote: ‘I will do whatever it takes, even if I have to do it alone.’ Current age: twelve. Status: genin.” Shiranui furrows his eyebrows, turning the piece of paper over so that he can look at the back of it. He finds nothing but the unbroken pale color of a blank sheet of paper. “Is—that it? Are you keeping something from me? This doesn’t seem thorough at all.”

Kurenai sighs. “Nothing, Shiranui. This is the whole report. It’s—appalling, really. They should have more information. They should have a therapist listed. He should at least have emergency contacts, for the gods’ sakes. And It should also state how much of a flight risk he is. This is only a few sentences, and even _I’ve_ figured that out. ‘Even if I have to do it alone’? He’s all but stated his intent to go missing-nin if things don’t go his way. And judging from what I’ve actually seen and heard of him—he probably means _exactly_ his way. I’m _concerned._ With that kind of mindset, he’s—he probably shouldn’t have been allowed to graduate. And don’t get me _started_ on the Uzumaki child. You know—of course you know. But goddamn it, Shiranui. I just found out he lived on the _streets_ for three years before the Hokage even noticed, and now he’s living in an awful apartment in the poorest part of town. And he’s on _Hatake’s_ team, which is just asking for disaster because you have to know how close he was to—to _him,_ and if anyone is the walking definition of a guilt complex then it’s Hatake. Who’s in charge of this stuff?”

“The files? Or the graduating shinobi? Or the people that let the poor kid live out on the streets? Because if it’s _any_ of those then don’t ask me. I have no clue.”

 “Both. I mean—all of them. Probably some lazy chūnin in the administration building, for the files.” Kurenai restlessly tugs on a strand of her hair. “And as for who gets to graduate—actually, this should have been a no-brainer. That would be the head of the Academy. Whose name is . . . Hanazawa Yonko.” 

“I’m—bothered,” Shiranui finally says, after a long silence. He shifts his trademark senbon around in his mouth, and it clicks loudly in contrast to the dim, quiet room. “Shit.” 

Kurenai almost wants to scold him for his language. Almost. But they aren’t around any children, so she doesn’t really have to, and she lets the compulsion go easily.

“Exactly. The report is so _empty._ They go from documenting a huge trauma like this to just— _current age: twelve._ I don’t like it. My own file is way more filled out than this. It was when I was a genin, too. And the other thing I’m worried about is that almost _all_ these kids are like this. They’re going through some really hard stuff, and I have yet to see the name of a single therapist or psychologist listed on any of these papers.” Kurenai takes back the Uchiha’s file—although it can’t really even be called _that,_ it’s so small—and carefully arranges the pitiful stack of papers until it is neat. “I have Hiashi’s eldest daughter, Hinata. She should, by all rights, be a confident young woman with a well-versed knowledge of her clan, her peers, and the workings of Konoha. Do you want to know what happened when I introduced myself to my genin?”

Shiranui, who has just finished pulling up a chair and is now seated across the table from Kurenai, gives her a vague noise of what she correctly interprets to be affirmation, and gestures for her to go on.

“I told them—‘Three clan heirs on my team who aren’t Ino-Shika-Chō. I almost can’t tell if this is a blessing or a curse.’—and Hinata says to me—she tells me that she isn’t the heir. Her _younger sister,_ Hanabi, is the heir. Because Hinata isn’t good enough, apparently. And throughout this whole conversation she is a stuttering, blushing mess, tapping her foot and steepling her fingers in what are so _obviously_ nervous tics, and if I were any ordinary person I wouldn’t have been able to hear her.” Kurenai leans back in the cheap, back pain-inducing folding chair that she has no other choice but to sit on and crosses her legs. “I watched her, and I didn’t say anything, because the gods know she must have enough people on her case at home, but I couldn’t help but think that what I was seeing was _wrong._ ”

Shiranui drags a hand down his face. He looks _tired,_ and it’s a perfect reflection of how Kurenai is feeling at the moment. “And?”

“I want to _help_ her. It’s clear that she has anxiety, primarily social but most likely it’s general—she has massive self-esteem issues and is terrible at speaking up. I talked to her after our initial meeting, when Shino and Kiba had gone home. I asked her if she was okay, if she’s ever seen a therapist or a psychiatrist for any trouble with her anxiety. She told me that there is no clan psychiatrist or anything like that, and that she isn’t allowed to do many things outside of the Hyuuga compound. I can honestly say that I am appalled. _Everyone_ should have access to mental health care. I’m glad that most of the jōnin here do even if they don’t actually _use_ the resources that they have, but—I hardly know anyone in the administration building, and those are the people who are _supposed_ to be providing children with information, the ones who are supposed to be telling the Academy that it needs to make sure that its students are well taken care of. I don’t know who they are, and I don’t know what’s _happened_ since I was a genin. Things were better. I’m pretty stable.” Kurenai grins, tiredly, at the man sitting across from her. “You’re not too bad yourself, all things considered. But things have _changed._ And I’m not too sure that I like it.”

Shiranui licks his lips. He looks—pensive, like he’s trying to come to a conclusion but the process is slow, almost unbearably so, and Kurenai wants to pat him on the shoulder because if there is anything she knows so intimately, it is that. “And your other genin? What about them? What about the rest of the graduates?”

Kurenai, whose coffee has cooled down significantly—but not enough to taste bad—takes a sip out of her mug and sets it down with a loud _thunk._ “Inuzuka Kiba is an idiot. A loud one. He seems well-adjusted enough, although I think he might have ADHD. He never pays attention, and while I’m sure that he will be able to focus on many things at once during a battle, it might be the death of him in a drawn out fight. One wrong move, as they say.” 

“Don’t I know it,” Shiranui says in return. He’s quiet. Assessing. Kurenai is certain that he means no harm, but the almost-intensity that the man is radiating is enough to make her just the slightest bit wary. “And the Aburame?

“He’s quiet.” Kurenai stops here for a second before adding, “Well. More so than any Aburame I’ve seen so far. It’s enough to warrant some suspicion of anxiety problems. He spoke about twenty words to me and then clammed up, and from what I’ve learned by asking around, he didn’t have any friends in the Academy. I asked the Haruno kid what she thought of him. She said she can never tell what he’s thinking. Has never talked to him, actually. The Yamanaka girl said that his clan is ‘pretty cool’ because they keep harmful insects off of the Yamanaka grounds, away from the gardens and greenhouses. Nothing related to the actual kid. And then they both left. Said something about—training, was it?” Kurenai leans forward again and rests her palm on her cheek. “I don’t know what to _do_ about all of this. Not just my kids, but Hatake’s too. And Asuma’s, because I love the man but I’m not sure that I trust him with children. The only thing I know for sure is to find a reliable psychiatrist, and also a well-respected therapist, and set them up with a few of the children. A Yamanaka, I think, would do nicely, if there are any in the mental health area. They would of course both need to be equipped to dealing with shinobi. I just—I already _care_ for these kids. So much. I’ve barely known mine for a day, and I’ve hardly ever even _met_ the others.”

Shiranui nods thoughtfully. “And what of their skills? I’m assuming you assessed those?” 

Kurenai groans and puts her heads in her hands. She laughs, involuntary, at the memories of this morning. “Yes, but—the Inuzuka, Kiba—he’s Hana’s younger brother—is abysmal at everything but taijutsu, and that’s only because he’s ‘never used that lame-ass Academy style, what do you take me for, a loser?’ I really can’t blame him, even if I wish that he would choose words that are . . . more proper. Kiba has horrible chakra control—only just barely good enough to make a clone of him. His reserves are average, if a bit on the small side. Horrible with genjutsu, and besides that he doesn’t have the chakra control for casting them. He works well with his ninken though. Akamaru compliments him very well and will be a valuable asset to the team, once they’ve honed their skills. And—Kiba has a good nose on him. My team’s suited for tracking, I can tell you that.”

“Shino, now, is a different story,” Kurenai continues. “He is skilled with his kikaichu, so I assume that he’s had some clan training. His taijutsu is lacking, but his chakra reserves are huge. During introductions, he said that his bugs have fed off his chakra since he was very young. I think that having his chakra constantly drained in such a way forced his reserves to expand. I didn’t sense any damage to his coils, so it must not have been detrimental. It’s a pretty effective technique, really . . . In any case, his chakra control is average, but can and will be improved upon. He is below average in terms of ability to detect low-level genjutsu, but . . . he’s good, for a new genin. I must say that I am impressed.”

“Hinata knows the basics very well. If her Byakugan is activated while I am casting the genjutsu, she can easily identify and dispel it. It’s a little harder for her if I cast it beforehand, but she isn’t bad. Her taijutsu style is typical to the Hyūga clan, but she doesn’t take to it well. I’ve offered to teach her a quicker, heavier-hitting style that I think is better-suited to her body type and personal preference. She said she’ll think about it. Her chakra control is exceptional, but she has average reserves. With the right training, some proper chakra exercises, and meditation, those will easily expand. I had expected that her clan would have trained her more, but they haven’t, which is disappointing. She’s around the level that I would expect from a regular genin, minus the fine chakra control. That’s just a happy bonus. I think she’ll do well, if I can get some confidence into her.”

Kurenai snorts, remembering the days of her own genin team. How unpolished, untested, unpracticed they were. “They’re rough. But they’ll get there.”

Shiranui hums. “You’ve got your head on straight, at least. Now, Hatake? That man couldn’t take care of even the most easy-going genin. He’s going to fuck something up, and I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want to watch him spiral into that same mindset that he gets in whenever he’s assigned to a team that he has to work with for more than a week at a time. So here’s the plan,” Shiranui says, uncharacteristically serious. Kurenai looks up at him, and sees that he’s taken the senbon out of his mouth and placed it on the table. “We’re gonna take these genin, these nine genin who’ve not yet been out of the Academy for a week, and we’re going to help them. Shit, Yūhi, I’ve been looking over these files,” he says, gesturing to the papers that have somehow made their way across the table, “and they’re all—well. I don’t like it, is what it is. We can _do_ something to help them. So I say we should. We should round up a bunch of the other tokujō and jōnin-sensei, because I’m sure that they want to help with this too, and we should help these kids.”

Kurenai finds herself laughing, because this is _exactly_ what she’d been getting at, and then Shiranui had picked it up and made it his own without her even noticing. “Okay, Shiranui,” she says. “But tomorrow. First, I need some sleep. And I’ve got a long day ahead of me with my team. I’ll be here at around eighteen hundred hours tomorrow, and then I’ve got a date with Anko about an hour later, and she . . . doesn’t like lateness.”

 “Tomorrow, for sure,” Shiranui says. When he hesitates before speaking again, Kurenai raises an eyebrow at him. He continues. “And—you know what? Just call me Genma. We’ve worked together for more than a year now. I think that warrants first-name usage.”

“Genma it is then, and it’s Kurenai for me.” She yawns widely, and stands up to put her mug in the tiny Jōnin HQ sink. She’ll deal with it tomorrow.

(She actually hopes that some other poor unfortunate soul will be there and will do all the dishes before she does, but, well. She often finds that she’s the only shinobi with half a mind to do any actual _work_ around here.) 

“Go to bed, Kurenai,” Genma says, picking up his senbon, before climbing up onto the windowsill and then leaping out of the open window. The next time he speaks, it’s distant, and Kurenai just barely catches it. “You look like you’ve been stampeded by a horde of angry genin.”

Kurenai stops to scowl from where she’s setting up some blankets, because like _hell_ is she running all the way across town when there’s a perfectly serviceable couch right here, and then she takes the advice, and promptly passes out on the HQ sofa.

  

Hinata is—confused, to say the least, as she walks to training ground 16. She's never had someone care so much about her wellbeing, about her training, and yet Yūhi-sensei seems to care so _much_ —

Is there an ulterior motive, perhaps? 

And that voice sounds suspiciously like her father, but, well. Hinata has been listening to orders from him for as long as she’s been old enough to walk. 

But really, though, she asks herself again. _Is_ there an ulterior motive?

Hinata shivers at the thought, before deciding that, no, her new sensei doesn't seem like that kind of person. Her new sensei is _nice,_ and smiles at her, and had even looked a little angry on her behalf when she had told her about not being the clan heir. 

To ask about therapy, though . . . Hinata just doesn't understand. There is a good motive for her to get training, and that is because she will be more of an asset to her team if she is strong physically. But why would she need therapy? How would she even _get_ therapy? Are children _allowed_ to have therapists? She's the daughter of a clan head, even, wouldn't that make him look bad? The crazy daughter of an upstanding noble sounds . . . Hinata doesn’t exactly know how it sounds, but she’s hedging on somewhere between _bad_ and _disowned-bad._ She wouldn't want to risk making Hiashi angry for something as unimportant as her mental state. 

Hinata would need to fix this—her _anxiety_. It's a risk for a shinobi to have. She could potentially get a teammate killed because she would have stuttered at the wrong moment, because she would not have been speaking fast enough to warn them of a danger. Or she would not have spoken loud enough, and nobody would have been able to hear her in time to dodge, or to run.

She could—

But she already _knows_ , she knows every little thing her anxiety could cause, every little consequence right down to the dent on the clan’s honor that she has apparently brought about. She is, after all, yelled at about it every time she's home.

(And, really, what she would give to get rid of this mental handicap . . . )

Hinata sees half of her team there, waiting for her and Kiba to arrive. She notices Shino twitch whenever Yūhi-sensei looks at him. She can see how the woman makes an effort to seem less intimidating, even though it’s probably ingrained into her very being that she has to look fierce, has to look brave and unwavering at any given moment.

She thinks she might be able to trust her sensei. 

“G-good morning, Yūhi-sensei,” Hinata calls out as soon as she draws close. “I hope I’m not too l-late.”

“Good morning, Hinata,” the woman greets her, warm smile rising on her face like the tide. “You’re not too late at all. In fact, the both of us are here early. I might have gotten a bit excited to see you all today, so I got here a bit too soon.” Yūhi-sensei smiles sheepishly, and then adds, “Although, I’m not sure why Shino is here this early.” 

Shino is silent, for a few long moments, and Hinata wonders if he’s missed the verbal cue, but then he says, “I value earliness. Why? Because being late irritates one’s comrades. Irritation leads to a decrease in teamwork, which leads to a greater chance of failure on missions.” 

It’s probably the most that Hinata has ever heard from him, and it brings a small smile, along with a light dusting of red, to her face. Shino seems impassive underneath the high collar of his large, pale jacket. Hinata wishes that she could see his face. She thinks that it would just be so much better if she could take a look at him and know how he was feeling, how she should act around him that day.

And then she remembers that Shino must have a reason for not wanting to show his face, so she lets that thought lie and brings herself back to the present.

“How are you, Hinata? We’re still waiting on Kiba, but I can get you started on stretches, if you'd like.”

Hinata responds, slow and quiet, “F-f-fine, sensei . . . I think—I’d r-r-rather w-wait. For Kiba-kun.”

Kurenai smiles and nods. Pleased, Hinata would assume.

And isn't that just odd?

Hinata speaks once more, “And I would—I th-think I-I-I’ll, um, take your o-offer . . . for the taijutsu. Style, the t-t-taijutsu style.”

And the smile from her sweet, caring sensei evolves into a full-blown grin.

Sensei begins to ramble, “That’s great! We’ll need work on your strength, in addition to the rest of your training, but other than that, I believe this style will suit you _amazingly_ , especially once you have the strength to back up your speed—oh, and I’ll need to gather some additional tips to help you along, maybe I’ll ask Gai for his help, I’m sure that he would love to look after another student, and he’s the expert on taijutsu in Konoha at the moment—did I mention this style was founded by Tsunade-hime of the Sannin? It works well with your Byakugan, too, because although it _is_ a devastating style, it’s still quick enough for you to seal off an opponent’s tenketsu with, perfect for small, powerful jabs. I’d love to see you become as physically adept as her. It would be—”

Yūhi-sensei cuts herself off. And turns tomato-red. 

“Ah, sorry, I’m just really excited for you. Maybe we could . . . ”

 The woman trails off, appearing to be lost in thought.

Hinata doesn’t notice that a smile has lit up her face until the corners of her mouth start to hurt.

Kurenai really _is_ so caring and kind. 

Hinata trusts her, even if she's still a little confused about her.

She trusts her. And that’s what counts.

 

 

Sasuke is walking home from his final mission of the day, mentally cursing Hatake for the severe lack of training.

If this goes on, he will never be able to be strong. If all their sensei does is give them stupid tests and preach to them about friendship, then Sasuke will _never_ be able to—

He’s so caught up in his train of thought that he nearly startles when someone starts to walk beside him, steps blending smoothly in with his. He reaches for his shuriken, instinctually, upon seeing red eyes and long, black hair.

Itachi, he thinks. Sharingan, he thinks, and there’s _panic_ buried deep inside that thought, deep under all the layers, except it’s _not_ Itachi, and only then can Sasuke relax, even if it is only marginally. A woman. No tomoe. Just a regular kunoichi.

(Nothing to worry about. He’s safe, he's safe, he's perfectly fine. Nothing will happen, nothing will happen. He is not here. That man is not here, and he will be fine as long as this is the way it is.) 

“My name is Yūhi Kurenai, jōnin of Konohagakure. You are Uchiha Sasuke, correct?” the woman asks, calmly, and there’s some kind of aura around her that feels so warm, and that makes Sasuke want to close his eyes and go to sleep. He likes it, and he hates how _weak_ it makes him feel.

Sasuke doesn't drop his guard, even as he confirms that he is indeed Uchiha Sasuke.

“I’m only here to talk, and to ask you a question. You can leave or you can ignore me if you don't wish to answer. I will repeat this: an answer is not mandatory, and neither is speaking. This is a yes or no question, so you may choose to answer non-verbally if you wish. A nod or a shake will suffice.”

Her voice is soft, reassuring, and she tells Sasuke things more than once to make sure that he understands, which he is so _grateful_ for because nobody ever does that for him even when he needs it and of _course_ he needs it now when his thoughts are still broken from the panic—and yet, Sasuke feels trapped.

(He wants to run, run, he wants to hide, he wants—)

“What do you want?” he asks, irritated by his thought process.

( _How weak. How very, very weak,_ Itachi says to him in his head. Itachi, Itachi, Itachi, running circles around his mind and calling Sasuke _weak_ and telling him to live and be _strong—_ ) 

She smiles. “I work with Hatake Kakashi, your jōnin-sensei, and I noticed that your file has no mention of you ever seeing a mental health specialist. I would just like to know if this is accurate, or if someone didn't deem it important enough to record.” 

“So, you want to know if I've ever been to therapy?” Sasuke asks, his fingers still hovering over the button on his weapons pouch, ready to grab shuriken or a kunai at a moment's notice. The woman—Yūhi—nods. 

Sasuke slows his pace as he thinks. Yūhi slows down with him. “Answer’s no. No one ever mentioned anything like that.”

(He feels appalled at his own easy speech, at the way he wants to answer this woman who is asking not about his brother or his dead clan or anything that  _anyone_ usually asks about but is asking instead after something so insignificant as his mental health—he is absolutely appalled, but the woman just feels so _trustworthy._ And he’s tired. He’s _tired_ of not talking to anyone, and he doubts that this _Yūhi_ will go and blabber everything to Hatake. Or his teammates, or any of the other genin.) 

She hums in surprise. “I see. Well, thank you for responding truthfully. I’m just fact checking—it didn't seem too realistic to me that nobody suggested counseling of any kind. I'll have to talk to someone about that. Good luck with your training, Sasuke-kun. And remember to eat a healthy dinner.” 

And just like that, in a swirl of leaves and wind, the woman is gone. Sasuke feels himself relax, only just noticing how tight his posture was. His shoulders ache from the tension and the stress.

She wants him to eat a healthy dinner.

Sasuke almost laughs, but panic is still crouched at the edges of his fraying mind and he cannot conjure up anything more than a huff of breath.

(He had felt so cornered, so forced, so nervous. She had been so kind, so inviting, and— _why is he like this?_ He’s so weak, so weak, he’ll never—he’ll _never_ be strong enough. How _can_ he be, when he gets so anxious at the mere idea that someone would even want to talk to him? She wasn't even—she _wasn’t even anything like **him**_ —)

Sasuke opens the door to his apartment, feeling dazed and numb as he whispers “I’m home” to himself and takes off his sandals.

He’s so tired. Being awake is exhausting.

He's so . . .   _tired_.

  

 

 “I talked to Morino,” Genma says to Kurenai by way of greeting. “He’s in.”

“ _What?_ ” Kurenai asks, just a little incredulous. “How’d you manage _that?_ ”

“Stopped by his office, told him the basics of our plan. He told me to fuck off, which I really should have expected, but I _did_ tell him that some of them would fit well into T &I,” Genma answers, and shrugs. “So long story short, he’ll help. Said that he’ll send Anko over.”

Kurenai glances around at the few jōnin and tokujō that are milling around in the HQ. She can see Gekkō— _Hayate,_ she reminds herself, _Hayate._ Because the man is prone to irritability when people are too formal with him, even if it’s something as small as his last name—in a corner of the room glaring moodily down at his papers. But there is no Anko.

“She’s probably pissed ‘cause this is her day off,” Genma guesses.

“Maybe. Possibly. Actually, that's very likely. But if I’m here—and yes, she _knows_ I’m here, I practically live here—she’s likely to show up soon.” Kurenai runs a hand through her hair. It's beginning to become a habit. “So who else are we dragging into this mess of ours?”

“Not Hatake,” Genma quips, right off the bat.

Kurenai laughs. “No, probably not. Namiashi? Yamashiro?”

“Could work,” Genma says. “If any of your students are interested in kenjutsu, Raidō’s your man. He’s also very proficient with teleportation seals, but they do take a toll on his reserves to use, so you’ll want to send any kids with large reserves and average or higher control his way. You want Aoba to train any fire-inclined students. He also has a crow summoning technique, but—that’s fairly high-level, and I’m not sure your little genin could handle it.”

“They’re not little,” Kurenai interrupts. She knows that she shouldn’t let her irritation show like this, but— “That sounds condescending. Just say that they aren’t ready to perform this jutsu yet, and move on. They’ll hate you if you talk like that to them, and I don’t want even _more_ issues to deal with on top of what’s already there.”

“Got it. Sorry,” Genma apologizes, properly chastised.

Really, Kurenai thinks. _Men._

“Anyway. Go on,” she prompts.

“Aoba’s skill set is a lot more diverse, but he doesn’t have mastery over them like Raidō does over kenjutsu. His crows should be taught to all of the Rookie Nine, though, for communication purposes. Other than that, Aoba would probably be more suited as a beginning teacher, and then the genin should be turned over to different instructors after they’ve found their footing. He can still be there and provide tips, of course, but I don’t think he would be in charge.” 

“That sounds reasonable,” Kurenai says. “Where are they now? Have you spoken to them as well?”

“No,” Genma admits. “They’ve been on a mission for these past few days. They should be back—today, probably. Uh—I think Hayate would be pretty good for this, too. He’s good in stealth, and I mean _really_ good, so he’d be suited to any of the rookies who are interested in tracking, especially your team. His taijutsu is pretty solid, relying more on brute strength and quick reflexes than anything else, so he’s mainly an attacker on that front—ninjutsu, I’d say he’s okay, but what he really excels in is kenjutsu. He’s good with a variety of weapons, actually, and you know about his Crescent Moon Dance technique—he’s also well-versed in the Transparent Escape technique. Sorry, I’m rambling.”

“No, no, this is solid information. Useful,” Kurenai says. “I’ll probably pair him up with my team, if he agrees to this. Namiashi and Yamashiro sound like they’re more suited to up-front attacks. I think they’ll go well with Hatake’s kids.”

“Not Hatake’s anymore,” Genma says under his breath. “You’ve practically adopted them.” 

Kurenai can feel her face go red. “Stop it! Like I said, I just don’t want to see them self-destruct. I want to see them actually become strong. And anyway, if anyone would adopt one of them, it’s _you._ _You_ , Shiranui Genma, are the very _definition_ of a _mother hen._ ”

She takes great satisfaction in seeing Genma’s face turn tomato-red. She expertly dodges the flurry of senbon he flicks her way. “Am _not,_ ” he hisses. “I just—taking care of people is important, okay? Making sure that people are well-rested and fed so that they can be in good conditions during a mission and making sure they’re feeling okay mentally so that they don’t destroy themselves by throwing themselves into their work is _not—_ oh. Huh.” 

Kurenai graces him with a knowing smile, and then redirects her attention to the matter at hand. “So now do we actually go around recruiting people for this, or do we go and look for—”

“Kurenai!” Anko shouts, as she jumps in through one of the very many windows embedded in the walls of Jōnin HQ—and really, Kurenai thinks, why does nobody use the _door?_ —and throws herself bodily at Kurenai. “I missed you!”

“It’s been a _day,_ Anko. I bought you dango _yesterday._ And I left some for you on your desk this morning!” Kurenai rolls her eyes, but lifts her arms up so that she can return Anko’s hug. “Don’t tell me that you haven’t been in your office all day.”

“I haven’t been in my office all day,” Anko says unapologetically. “It’s stuffy in there. A bitch needs to breathe!”

“Does your office have windows?” Kurenai asks, giving her girlfriend the flattest of stares. “Do you _open_ those windows?”

“It’s _hot_ outside,” Anko complains. “And besides, I’d rather be deep down in T &I _heaven_ watching some poor fucker get completely taken apart. And that doesn’t even have to be literal. It’s fun! And cooler, temperature-wise. A lot fucking cooler than the aboveground floors, I can tell you that.”

“I question your idea of fun,” Kurenai says dryly.

Anko shrugs. “Eh. Does it matter? Can we get dango now? I’m hungry as _shit_.”

“We can get some later. Right now we’re talking about the genin. Ibiki asked you to come here and help, right?”

“Sure did. But this is _boring._ ” Anko turns to Genma and gives him the stink eye. “And what’s _he_ doing here?”

“He’s helping me,” Kurenai says. “And you will _not_ terrorize him, okay?”

“Little fucker,” Anko says under her breath, and ignores Genma’s offended protestations. “And I’ll terrorize whoever I wanna terrorize! Genma couldn’t stop me even if I had both arms tied behind my back. Oh, shit,” she says when she catches the look on Kurenai’s face. “ _Fine._ What do you need help with? I can beat anything into anyone! Just say the word, my _dear_.” 

“Aren’t you confident,” Hayate drawls from across the room. “How about beating some _manners_ into _yourself_?”

“Why, you little _fucker,_ I’m going to _gut you_ —” Anko tenses her legs, obviously preparing to lunge at the tokujō. Kurenai strengthens her hold around Anko’s torso, and stays strong even when the woman pouts at her. “Come _on,_ Kurenai, the little shit’s just _asking_ for it!” 

“I’m older than you,” Hayate says. “And taller.”

“Oh, _fuck_ you, Gekkō, I’ll show _you_ who’s tall—” 

“ _Anko._ ”

Anko whines, and then goes limp in Kurenai’s arms, forcing her to stumble a bit to keep her balance. Kurenai sighs and decides that keeping herself _and_ Anko upright is more trouble than it’s worth, so she drags Anko over to the couch that she’d slept on and collapses there in a heap of limbs and—mad cackling, on Anko’s part. Genma follows behind them, and ends up sitting on the armrest. 

To be fair, it is a very comfortable armrest.

“Fine,” Anko says, shooting one last look at Hayate. And, oh, is it a _look._ “But if he keeps on being— _himself_ , or whatever—I really _will_ jump at him.” She turns to glare directly at Hayate. “That’s a _promise,_ you _hellion_.”

“Confident, hm?” Kurenai hums, thinking back a few seconds. “Say, Anko, you know about my genin team, right?”

“Yes . . . ” Anko says, peering up at Kurenai suspiciously. “What are you getting at?”

“The Hyūga girl, Hinata. She—well, to put it shortly, she’s a mess with no self-confidence and she thinks she isn’t good enough for anything. I’m working on it, but I think you would be a good influence.”

Anko laughs uproariously. “ _Me?_ A good influence? Kurenai, you’re fucking funny, you know that?”

Kurenai takes a deep breath in, and then out. One must be calm to deal with Anko properly. “Thank you for the compliment, love, but that’s not what I was getting at and you know it.  If you’d calm yourself down just the _tiniest_ bit, you wouldn’t overwhelm her. I _know_ you wouldn’t. And she really could learn a thing or two from you, about interrogation tactics. It would help her stand up to Hiashi, if she ever gets there. And I think, for as different as the two of you are from each other, you would get along. I really do.”

Kurenai notices that Anko has gone uncharacteristically quiet, and that she looks—well, _floored_ is the only word she can really think of that fits her expression. “Kurenai,” Anko starts, and her voice is small. It’s _too_ small. “I don’t—do you _really_ think I could be good with children? I’m _me._ I like that you care enough to think I could help some little girl who’s probably got a thousand and one issues _without_ me there to give her more, and she’d probably be better off with a therapist—”

“ _Anko,_ ” Kurenai says firmly, bringing her hands up to cup her girlfriend’s cheeks. “You will do fine. I will have her see a therapist as soon as I am able to. That’s a promise. But she does need strong women in her life to show her that it’s possible to be confident. I think she’s had enough of men telling her what to do. Chin up, dear."

Anko straightens herself up and nods. “Right. I’m going to—I’m going to meet this little kunoichi of yours, and I’m going to do _good_ by her.” She bites her lip, seeming to worry about something for a second—and if Kurenai knows anything about anything, it’s that Anko is most likely sorting out all of her issues right now—and then her face falls back into its usual razor-sharp grin. “I’m going to make her so strong, oh my fuck. A _Hyūga,_ under my training. She’s going to be _amazing._ ” 

Kurenai laughs. “And I’ll be there too, to make sure you don’t get _too_ into this. Who knows? She may want to be apprenticed to you if you keep this up. How about that? A Hyūga in T &I? Hmm, Anko- _sensei_?”

Anko fidgets, and her grin turns a degree sharper, which is _never_ a good thing, in Kurenai’s experience. Kurenai narrows her eyes suspiciously. “Don’t _call_ me that when we’re out in public, Kurenai-chan, you _know_ how flustered that makes me. How about later, when we—”

Kurenai splutters. “That’s—that’s _not_ what I _meant_! And I’ve never even _called_ you that before—”

The sound of chuckling washes into Kurenai’s ears. She realizes a second later that it’s Genma’s voice, and then she takes a deep breath to collect herself, because she is a dignified kunoichi of Konoha, and she will _not_ show embarrassment, even if she and Anko are the center of attention of practically all the jōnin and tokujō in the room.

“I wish she acted like this with all of us,” Genma sighs wistfully, and then quickly corrects himself. “I mean, the toned-down part, not the lovey-dovey mushy thing. I think even the best of the best would piss themselves if Anko tried to—well.”

“I’m right _here,_ fuckface,” Anko spits venomously, and then turns to look at Kurenai. “ _Anyway._ I’m assuming that since it’s you and Mother Hen Number Two over there who are doing this, so you’re _obviously_ going to drag some more of the poor jōnin fuckers into this. Oh, man. _Genin._ They’re all going to suffer so _much_ ,” Anko says gleefully. She’s still sitting in Kurenai’s lap, and Kurenai adjusts herself so that Anko can get more comfortable.

The door of Jōnin HQ slams open.

“Mission—done— _coffee,_ ” Namiashi gasps. He looks a little ragged, and a _lot_ dirty, and Yamashiro, who’s following closely behind him, doesn’t look much better. They both make a beeline straight for the kitchen. “Oh, thank the _gods._ Whoever buys this coffee—I don’t even know if you’re here right now, but _please_ let me _marry you._ ”

Yamashiro nods in agreement. “We can _both_ marry you. If it means getting more coffee like this. Fuck, this must be so expensive. I love you so much, mystery coffee person."

Genma smiles, for some reason. It’s vaguely suspicious, but Kurenai won’t pursue.

She’s just grateful that the two of them used the door.

Anko laughs at the sight of them sobbing theatrically into their coffee. “The smell of tears is reinvigorating,” she informs Kurenai. “Really. I feel younger already.”

“I got _no sleep_ during this mission,” Yamashiro bemoans. “I _hate_ stakeouts.”

“Steak house?” Maruten asks, from where he’s been filing a mission report on one of the . . . slightly less comfortable couches. “I _love_ steak.”

“No, you oaf,” Namiashi says, but there’s no real heat behind it. “ _Stakeouts._ But, really, I actually could go for some steak . . . After this coffee is finished.”

“If you take me with you,” the Akimichi offers, “I’ll pay. Gods know this mission has raked in enough cash for a treat.”

Yamashiro and Namiashi wince. They know _exactly_ what mission Maruten is talking about; it had been an assassination that was supposed to be quick, no more than a day, really, but Maruten had been stuck tracking the target for a week because of faulty info on the client’s part. In a rare show of good will, the client had paid extra. But it hadn’t changed the fact that the mission had been an absolutely _grueling_ one.

“Done,” Namiashi agrees immediately. “Come here, I’ll help you out with that mission report if you want.”

“Oh, thank the gods for you. You are a _lifesaver,_ ” Maruten breathes, and stands up so that he can make his way over to the kitchen table. “The counter isn’t that good of a place to work. Come here. You can just fill out some of the simpler questions. I’m sure you’ve heard me grousing about this mission enough that you can answer the simple details. And if you need help,” Maruten adds, “then you can just ask me. And thanks, again.”

Namiashi brings his mug over to the table and picks up the papers that Maruten hands him. “No problem.”

Kurenai sees this as an opportunity, and so does Genma, judging from the look on his face. Kurenai pushes a very dismayed Anko out of her lap and makes her way over to where the tokujō are gathered.

“So, Yamashiro, Maruten, Namiashi,” she proposes, “I’ve been thinking. You all have seen the new batch of genin?”

Maruten grimaces. The expression is mirrored on the faces of his two comrades. “Unfortunately, yes. I don’t doubt their potential, but I really wonder whether most of them should have been allowed to graduate. Especially that Uchiha kid—he seems like a major flight risk.”

“That’s what I said.” Genma crosses his arms. “You probably haven’t seen his file. I probably wasn’t really _supposed_ to, either, but. It was less than a _quarter_ of a page long. But anyway, that’s not exactly the point here. The _point_ is that these kids need some kind of help, some kind of acknowledgement beyond ‘go out there and train yourselves to kill people’. From what I’ve observed of the new graduates, they’re mostly—maladjusted, and mentally unstable. Nervous, refuse to speak, _paranoid,_ and in the Uzumaki kid’s case—I’m not even sure where to _start._ He flinches if someone so much as _looks at him_.”

“What we’re saying,” Kurenai continues, “is that we think we can do what it will take to get these kids in a good place, both mentally _and_ physically. I would hesitate, even now, to call them battle-ready. And yes, they’re genin, they aren’t supposed to be battle-ready, but I would prefer that they are. At least for small skirmishes. And the gods know that Hatake isn’t going to do anything about it.”

“The civilian girl, Haruno,” Yamashiro says. “Now there’s an inferiority complex just waiting to happen. Seems like she’s been set up to fail. I don’t _like_ that.”

“Exactly,” Kurenai says, glad that they’re understanding where she’s coming from. “I’m asking you all, not just because I’m a jōnin-sensei myself but because I honestly want to see these kids become strong, to help with this. We can figure out areas of expertise and introduce the rookies to you, and then we can get all the other jōnin-sensei in on it too. Asuma would probably be up for it. Oh. Actually, we probably can’t tell Hatake yet." 

“The man’s a walking disaster,” Maruten supplies. “Best to ease him into the whole ‘being a good teacher who genuinely cares about his students,’ hm?”

Genma nods, and smiles a bit. “We can actually start this up tomorrow, I think. Hatake’s been assigned a mission outside of the village for a few days—not really sure what the Sandaime’s _thinking,_ giving him that when he’s just gotten a genin team—but it’s useful for us. If we gathered there and introduced them to each other, it would serve the dual purpose of having them meet each other and begin to trust in their comrades, but it would also start them on trusting their superiors. It’ll be good all around.”

“Do you actually—agree to this?” Kurenai asks, because they haven’t _truly_ said yes, they’ve only looked generally agreeable. She lets out a relieved sigh when the three of them nod.

“Oh, gods,” Genma says. “And Anko, she’s in on this too—she’s going to turn them all into a bunch of _monsters_. I’m going to at least teach _one_ of them before she sinks her claws into them.”

Hayate chooses this moment to saunter up to their little group. His papers are tucked under one arm. He interrupts their conversation with a pointed—but, knowing Hayate, probably _necessary—_ cough. “So, am I included in this, or what? Because I am _not_ letting that witch outdo me.”

“I _heard_ that, you little rat,” Anko growls from clear across the room. Hayate visibly suppresses a shudder.

“Yes, Hayate, I was actually planning on asking you. This makes it easier—”

“How _youthful_!”

Has Gai been in the room this whole time? Kurenai wonders to herself. It’s surprising that she didn’t notice him.

“I would like to join you in this endeavor of yours! I feel that my team could benefit from a group training exercise or exercises! Young Neji is not feeling the youth of Konoha,” Gai explains earnestly, bounding over to them. Kurenai wishes she had half as much energy as this man does. In the background, she can see Anko glaring. Kurenai will never understand Anko’s deep hatred for Gai’s enthusiasm. She thinks it’s a nice touch, a lively upside to the downs of shinobi life. Anko probably thinks it’s annoying. “There is much that I could teach these up-and-coming shinobi! For youth!”

Kurenai chuckles, nodding. “Of course, Gai. I was planning on asking you to help my student, actually. The Hyuuga girl? Hinata, she doesn't do well with her clan’s taijutsu style. I was thinking she’d do much better with Tsunade-hime’s, and I wanted a little of your input and guidance.” 

Gai clasps his hands over his chest. “How youthful! Yes, I am very familiar with the hip and cool style that Tsunade-hime utilizes! I will do my utmost to aid your young student in the youthful journey of taijutsu, and I will offer my assistance to any other students that would be interested! This is so that the springtime of their youth shall not be wasted! They are Konoha’s flowers, and I will help them bloom!”

Kurenai hides a small smile behind her hand. “Thank you, Gai. That’s very thoughtful of you. I think that tomorrow at training ground . . . nine would work. At least, I’m pretty sure that nine isn’t scheduled for use. Certain, really.” Upon receiving general noises of assent from the shinobi gathered there, Kurenai reminds herself to check the training ground roster and sign up for an all-day usage. “All right. We’ll probably be there the whole day, and we can all go somewhere for dinner, if that’s acceptable.”

Maruten nods enthusiastically. “Sounds good to me. Want us to bring anything special?”

“No,” Genma says, “but do be prepared to show off your specialties. Maruten, you should actually probably bring a few spare bō for any sparring that might happen. And also—I’m fairly sure that at least some of the genin will be interested in kenjutsu. And I think Gai’s student, Tenten, works with seals.” He turns to Gai, who nods in affirmation. “You might be able to do something interesting with that.”

Maruten hums. “Sealed bō, huh? Interesting.”

“Okay,” Kurenai says. It’s already dark, and she figures that she’s put Anko off for long enough. “Tomorrow, then. Someone else go inform Asuma about this. And _don’t take no for an answer._ Now, I’ve got a date to go on and dango to buy.”

“ _Finally,_ ” Anko says from where she’s stretched out on the couch. Kurenai notes that she looks rather like a cat. “I’ve been waiting _forever._ ”

“Patience, dear,” Kurenai says, crossing the room and pulling Anko up. “The dango isn’t going anywhere.”

“But what if it _does?_ ” Anko whines. “You don’t know if it’ll suddenly decide to grow legs. _You don’t know if my dango will run away._ ” 

Kurenai laughs, and bends slightly to plant a kiss on her girlfriend’s cheek. “It won’t, Anko. It won’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you wanted to see Anko's dango actually running away, here's an extra! Enjoy!
> 
> [ — ]
> 
> Anko chats loudly as she and Kurenai walk hand in hand toward the dango shop. Kurenai laughs at Anko’s violent and—rather vulgar, really—retelling of a mission that she’d taken recently as they take their seats at the dango stand. “I wasn't aware that was legal.”
> 
> “Oh, it isn't. Don't tell.” Anko winks at her conspiratorially.
> 
> Kurenai snorts. “Alright, then, my dear. Order your dango.”
> 
> “Ten sticks of mitarashi dango,” Anko orders, grinning—and honestly, this woman eats dango like there’s no tomorrow, and Kurenai is time and time again surprised at just how much she can eat—and doesn’t notice the quick spike of chakra from Kurenai when she receives said dango.
> 
> And when Anko reaches for a stick, it splits in two, the yellow ball in the middle opening its cartoonish eyes as it stands. There’s a tiny, high-pitched yelling from all of the other dango sticks—which have stood up, too—and then they run away down the street.
> 
> They’re really all still sitting on her plate—Kurenai would be a failure of a kunoichi if she couldn’t at least see through her own illusions—but either Anko hasn’t picked up on it, or she’s choosing to play along. Being the skilled shinobi that she is, Anko is probably doing the latter. And she's silent—almost dangerously so—as she turns to Kurenai with a betrayed look on her face.
> 
> “Kurenai- _chan,_ you lied!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a list of some of the lesser-known jōnin! Links will take you to pictures of them, just so you all can get an idea of what they look like.
> 
> [Yūhi Kurenai](https://i.imgur.com/GWNcYZQ.png) — [Namiashi Raidō](https://i.imgur.com/zf6KKFo.png) — [Yamashiro Aoba](https://i.imgur.com/lnZwK4l.png) — [Shiranui Genma](https://i.imgur.com/WBcFgmL.png) — [Akimichi Maruten](https://i.imgur.com/QcXeMDt.png) — [Yamanaka Santa](https://i.imgur.com/0vBgc2h.png) — [Togeito Tessen](https://i.imgur.com/K26xT1l.png)
> 
> Please leave a comment or kudos if you enjoyed!
> 
> (falterth: apologies if anyone has a problem with the length of the chapter—I hadn't written for a while and just completely went wild with this one and before I knew it it was 12k)
> 
> Warning for a panic attack this chapter! It's not detailed beyond the mentioning that there is, in fact, a panic attack occuring, but just in case we wanted to let you guys know!

The boy squints his eyes at her warily. “What’d ya say your name was again?”

“Yūhi Kurenai,” she repeats.

“So let me get this straight, just so we’re clear, y’know. You're saying there's a training session Kakashi-sensei doesn't know about? With all the teams? And _I’m_ invited?”

“Yes. At training ground nine. Your teammates will be there, as well.” Kurenai finds herself glancing into the apartment every so often, despite her efforts to avoid doing so. The anger builds, slowly but steadily. The _Hokage_ put Naruto in a place like _this?_ In an apartment building where he’s the only one on his floor, where the landlord clearly doesn’t pay attention to the state the building is in and—Kurenai is _mad._  

“Sakura-chan?” Naruto asks, excitement writ across his whole face.

Kurenai smiles. “Yes, and Sasuke.”

The grimace that makes its way onto Naruto’s face is both stubborn and endearing. “Sasuke-teme . . . but also Sakura-chan . . . right _now_?”

Kurenai nods. “Right now, that’s correct. Although, you can take your time getting ready if you'd like. We have about ten minutes until we need to go stop by Sakura and Sasuke’s houses.”

Naruto shakes his head, answering, “I don't need to. I'm already dressed and everything.”

Kurenai raises an eyebrow. “What about weapons? Kunai and shuriken, maybe?”

Naruto very visibly flinches at that. He stutters a response, “Well—see, there's—um, on our last mission—the client—never mind. Um, I don't have any right now.”

Kurenai cringes. “Client thought they were too dangerous to have around and never returned them?” At Naruto’s hesitant nod, Kurenai continues. “That’s fine, you can have some of mine. Civilians will be civilians, even if it’s an awful thing to do.”

“What? But—but they're _yours_ , what are _you_ gonna do without any weapons!?”

Kurenai smiles as she speaks. Naruto is—surprisingly adorable, and she finds herself warming up to him already. “I’m a jōnin. I have the money to buy more if I need to. You're ready to leave, then?” 

Naruto nods excitedly, tripping over his sandals on his way out of the apartment. Kurenai’s sharp intake of breath catches his attention, and words force themselves out of her mouth almost involuntarily.

“Your apartment is so _empty_ , Naruto. Where’s all your stuff?”

“Hm? No it isn't. There's lots o’ stuff. It's _way_ more than when I moved in! Jiji gave me the apartment, and there was already a fridge and a bed and stuff. I got the table and chair a while after that.” He _almost_ sounds offended, but Kurenai isn't sure.

In any case—it _isn’t_ a lot of stuff, and Kurenai wonders how he’s lived all this time if he regards the _basic necessities_ as a lot. “Ah, I'm sorry, that was inappropriate of me . . . are you going to lock the door?” she asks, distracting herself from her building irritation. 

“Lost the key,” he shrugs. “Asked the landlord if I could have a new one, but nobody ever responded.” 

Kurenai feels like banging her head on a _brick wall._  “You should ask your jiji to have a new one made. But—we’ll be late if we delay for any longer. Let's go.”

Naruto and Kurenai walk together, Kurenai nodding and responding quietly to every statement Naruto makes, all the way to Sakura’s house.

When Kurenai knocks on the door, a tall civilian woman with straight, dark hair done up in a loop and a bun answers. “Hello . . . ” she says, almost questioningly.

Kurenai nods to her, “Hello. My name is Yuuhi Kurenai, and I’m a jōnin of Konoha. I am here to ask for Sakura to come with us to a joint training session with the other genin teams.”

“Oh!” The woman's face lights up, and Kurenai’s own smile surfaces in response. “That’s a nice idea! She's been wanting to get some training in lately, but her sensei has been sending them on missions and never teaching them—she’s been awfully restless . . . ” Kurenai sees the woman's gaze go downward as she trails off. “Naruto-kun! I wasn't expecting to see you again so soon! How've you been doing?”

Naruto grins. “Hi, Harue-san! I've been good! Kakashi-sensei’s on a mission but all the graduating teams are meeting today! To train, y’know.” 

Harue smiles in response, eyes softening considerably at the sight of the boy. “I’ll go get Sakura, come on in!” 

Once inside, Harue asks them to remove their shoes and sit at the couch before running up the stairs. “Sakura!” Kurenai hears her shout.

“So,” Kurenai asks Naruto, once he’s settled down some, “how is your team? Do you like your teammates?”

Naruto nods, enthusiasm spilling over onto his face, and then the floodgates come open. “Yep! Sakura’s my friend already, and her moms are so nice, they invite me to _dinner_ all the time, they always have all kinds of vegetables and fish and sometimes if I ask ‘em nicely they make chazuke and they don’t usually make ramen but sometimes we visit old man Teuchi and we get some and eat it there, and they always ask me stuff like how I’m doing and if I had a healthy breakfast and they’re so _nice—_ ”

“Slow down, Naruto,” Kurenai reprimands in a light tone. “If you talk too fast, you’ll run out of breath. In any case, I’m glad that her parents have taken a liking to you. Have you told your jiji about them?”

Naruto looks confused, but he answers anyway. “Why would I? He never asks about my friends, and besides, I haven’t really seen him in a while. But that means he’s probably gonna come over soon, y’know!” Naruto pumps a fist in the air. “Yeah! I love it when jiji comes over.”

“And what about Sasuke?” Kurenai asks, favoring Naruto with a wide smile. “How are you two getting along?”

“Not good,” Naruto admits. “He doesn’t like people touchin’ him, and he doesn’t like it when we get too close either, but that’s okay because I’m gonna show him how strong I am and then he _has_ to be friends with me an’ Sakura! ‘Cause she wants to be his friend too, but she can’t do any of the regular things like eating dinner with him ‘cause he always says _no._ Sasuke’s no fun.”

Kurenai is about to respond, but she only has the chance to open her mouth before Harue is back with a sleepy Sakura in tow. She’s dressed, though, and Kurenai can spy a stuffed-to-bursting thigh pouch and med kit strapped to both of her legs. As soon as the girl spots Naruto, her face is transformed from sleepy unawareness to bright, all-encompassing joy. She immediately breaks into a run in the small living room, speeding toward him with her arms out. “Naruto! You’re here!”

Naruto jumps to his feet, arms similarly extended. Kurenai’s heart melts a little. “Sakura-chan!”

He’s not prepared enough for the force of her hug, apparently, and it knocks him back onto the couch. Sakura clings tight, and doesn’t let up until they’re both comfortably snuggled up against each other. Kurenai hides a grin behind her hand. She’s glad that Naruto has at least one good friend. 

“Are you excited for training?” Sakura asks. Naruto nods emphatically, and Sakura cheers. “I’m so glad we’re actually _doing_ something.”

“Mhm! Kakashi-sensei is so _lame!_ He never lets us do any _real_ ninja stuff. He made us do D-ranks right away yesterday and the day before that.”

“Did he now,” Kurenai asks-without-really-asking. She’s glad that she didn’t include Hatake in on this immediately, because really, _what is that man thinking, sending genin on D-ranks so soon after their teams have been formed?_ Kurenai wonders if he’s even introduced them to any kind of training. Somehow, she gets the feeling that Hatake wouldn’t have been so enthusiastic about this training session. “Don’t tell him we did this, then. He might not let you come in the future, even if you want to.”  
  
Naruto looks horrified. “ _Really?"_

Kurenai sighs. “Probably. I can’t say for sure, but if he hasn’t been giving you _any_ training, then that’s a good reason to be concerned. Tell me you’ve at least learned tree-walking.”

“What’s that?” Sakura asks.

Kurenai has to take a deep breath to calm herself down so that she doesn’t say something like, “You should have been practicing that on the _first day._ What is that idiot _thinking?"_

Instead, she explains to them what tree-walking is. “It’s a very useful technique for sticking to surfaces that gravity would ordinarily prevent you from walking on, and it doubles as a chakra control exercise. For this technique—oh. I suppose that Sasuke doesn’t know this either.” Kurenai looks around for a clock, and upon seeing the time, figures that she should save the explanation for when they’re at the training ground. “Come on, we should go get him and then meet up with the others. We don’t want to be late for this.”

Naruto and Sakura jump up immediately. “Okay, let’s go, then,” Naruto shouts. 

Harue leads them to the front door, and Kurenai, Naruto, and Sakura head in the direction of the orphan apartments district. Kurenai pretends not to notice the two of them holding hands as they go down the street.

But it’s so _cute_ —she’ll have to tell Anko about this, at least. Just Anko.

Possibly the entirety of Jōnin HQ.

Sasuke notices, though, as soon as he opens the door. His eyes immediately focus on Naruto and Sakura, and he squints suspiciously at them, but he makes no comment on it. “Yūhi-san,” he says instead. “What do you want _now?"_

Kurenai realizes that she will have to word this carefully. “Well,” she starts, “I am holding a joint training session with some other genin teams. I’ve invited a fair number of tokujō, too, and they will be demonstrating their skills and depending on what you’re interested in, you may choose to learn from whoever you like. It will be a good exercise, I think, because having a wide range of skills is valuable not only in terms of strength but in terms of unpredictability. Being a one-trick shinobi is one of the easiest ways to get yourself killed. In any case—you don’t _have_ to come, but it would be beneficial for everyone involved if you did.”

Sasuke is silent for a while, but he eventually nods. “Wait here while I get my stuff,” he orders, and if he was any other shinobi Kurenai would have scolded him on the spot for being disrespectful to a superior—but he’s not, and he needs to be handled differently, so Kurenai will have to find another way to tell him not to order everyone around. Because he _does_ need to learn the lesson, even if it takes a little extra effort.

He’s only gone for five minutes, but when he comes back he’s got some more practical clothes on and a fair number of weapons pouches. Kurenai is about to ask him what he could possibly want with so many, but then he gives half of them to Naruto, and—oh.

“Thanks,” Naruto says, and he looks uncertain for a moment, like he’s not even sure what Sasuke just handed to him, but the expression clears up as quickly as it had come. “C’mon, Yūhi-sensei, let’s go train! I wanna see all kinds of cool ninja stuff!”

Kurenai laughs because Naruto is such a sweet child, and she can’t _believe_ that people have been treating him wrong, but it’s true, and the only thing she can really do for him is to make sure that he is strong enough to not take any of it to heart.

And as for _her_ —she will see to it that his mistreatment stops, and stops entirely.

 

Kurenai watches over the gathered shinobi to make sure that introductions go well; so far, all of the genin have stated their names and their short-term goals for training. Kurenai notices Hinata watching Anko intently, and she smiles to herself. It should be easy to get the two to work together; and if the looks that the other girls give Anko are anything to go by, the woman will have her hands full very shortly. 

Sasuke has been silent so far, and he had introduced himself with the minimum amount of words possible. She’s glad that he’s at least paying attention. He seems to focus on the shinobi who are genjutsu specialists; when Kurenai introduces herself as Kurenai-sensei, she feels his eyes on her.

That’s all right. If he wants to learn about genjutsu, she has no problem teaching him. Most likely he only wants it to use and defend against Itachi, but Kurenai is okay with that, too. She’s just happy that he seems to actively want to learn. 

She sends a nod his way after she’s wrapped up her demonstration of a small and unobtrusive but still highly effective genjutsu. It is one that distorts the perception of the victim by just a small amount, so that the caster appears to move half a second later than they actually do. 

Sasuke doesn’t move, doesn’t do anything to show her that he’s acknowledged her except for a slow blink in her general direction.

Every time Kurenai meets him, he seems more and more like a cat.

But she doesn’t have time to give it more than a passing thought, so she nods at Hayate to prompt him to step forward.

“Gekkō Hayate,” he says, and coughs into his fist. Kurenai grimaces, because that is just _unsanitary._ “Just call me Hayate. I specialize in assassination, kenjutsu, and stealth techniques, and I’ve mastered the Crescent Moon Dance. It’s a technique that utilizes shadow clones and high speed to confuse enemies. It must be done with a weapon in hand, preferably long, and it’s an A-rank technique on top of that. What I’ll be demonstrating, however, is the Transparent Escape technique, if that’s all right with our instructor.”

Hayate turns to Kurenai and she nods at him. It’s a relatively harmless jutsu. The most that can probably come out of a failed attempt is some minor chakra drainage, and Kurenai trusts these kids not to attempt an unpracticed jutsu in the middle of a battle anyway—so it won’t be fatal if they can’t do it right.

“It doesn’t have an official ranking,” Hayate continues, “but the control needed to perform it should probably place it at the level of a B-rank. This technique allows me to become unnoticeable to others for a limited period of time. It’s best used for gathering quick intel.” 

Hayate performs a series of quick hand seals, visibly suppressing another cough, and then to the general intrigue of the genin, disappears from their sight. Kurenai notices Kiba turning his nose up to sniff at the air, and then shaking his head in confusion.

“He’s not just invisible,” Kiba says. “Why can’t I smell him?”

Kurenai smiles, because of _course_ Kiba would notice that. “Good catch. This jutsu combines both a light genjutsu and a chakra-amplifying ninjutsu. The ninjutsu amplifies the effects of the chakra used to form the genjutsu, which allows it to work on many people. The user goes unnoticed, not only for vision.It affects most or all of your senses, depending on how proficient of a chakra sensor you are. If you walk up to where you think he is, you won’t be able to feel him, even if you bump into him—for a short while, at least. I’d say it takes two or three seconds of contact to break the genjutsu, and then you will be able to see him and smell him.” 

Hayate releases the genjutsu and steps back into the line of jōnin. Kurenai gestures for Yamashiro to step forward. 

“Yamashiro Aoba. Just call me Aoba, or Aoba-sensei if you absolutely must.”

Kurenai makes a mental note to call him Aoba.

“I am proficient in taijutsu and genjutsu but specialize in ninjutsu. I am skilled in paralyzing opponents with my chakra, which is very useful for short fights. It isn’t as strong as a Shadow Binding jutsu, and it takes more out of me, but it’ll do in a pinch. I’m also well-versed in mind-walking jutsu, and provided that I have an opponent to use it on, I can easily read someone’s mind. The one requirement for this is that I have to have had physical contact with the victim at least once. I do not feel the need to demonstrate these two techniques. My favorite technique is called One Thousand Crows. It’s convenient for obscuring enemy eyesight, and my crows create a puff of smoke when dispelled. I can command the crows, and they can even carry messages. This is the jutsu I would like to demonstrate.” 

Kurenai gives her assent, and Aoba makes a series of complicated seals, and then the sound of feathers ruffling and crows _caw_ ing fills the air.

Then, a mixture of surprise and loudly-voiced awe turns the training ground . . . _very_ noisy. Tenten is standing there, watching the birds with a look of pure adoration on her face. Lee puts a hand on her shoulder and congratulates her for her youth and attentiveness, which gets a chuckle out of Kurenai. Neji stands there looking angry, as always, but grudgingly impressed. Kurenai thinks she sees Shikamaru lying down in the grass, Ino trying to comb crow feathers out of her hair, and Chōji is talking animatedly to Kiba. Shino is nodding along to something Hinata is saying.

For a few moments, Kurenai doesn't even hear the panicked voices of Sakura and Naruto. And then she does, and she immediately turns her full attention to them.

“Sasuke?! What the hell—what’s wrong? Sakura-chan, what’s—why’s he—” Naruto stops talking when he sees Kurenai shoving her way through the small crowd of genin and tokujō to bend down next to Sasuke so that she's just his height. 

He’s a shaking, hyperventilating mess, and Kurenai curses herself for not thinking about him before allowing Aoba to show off.

Of _course._ Crows had been Itachi’s favorite summons; it makes sense that Sasuke would have known about them. Kurenai swears under her breath and gestures for Naruto and Sakura to step back. 

“Silence!” she yells, using chakra to make her voice louder—it quiets the grounds in an instant. “Aoba, dispel your crows!” Immediately, smoke fills the training field, and when it clears every trace that the birds had been there is gone—save for the panicked boy sitting on the ground. 

She faces Sasuke again, ignoring the shocked stares of each and every genin surrounding her. That’s not _important_ right now, damnit, she’s got a kid to take care of. 

The boy’s on the ground now, mumbling incoherently to himself. He doesn’t seem angry, not like the last Uchiha hellbent on murdering his brother—he seems like the child he _is,_ the twelve-year-old boy he _is,_ like the—actually, she can think about this later, when he’s not panicking.

“Sasuke, you need to breathe,” Kurenai begins, quietly but firmly. “This is Yūhi Kurenai, jōnin-sensei of Team Eight. You are sitting in training ground nine. You’re going to be okay. Breathe.”

It takes several minutes of whispered reassurances to bring Sasuke back to himself. When he's calm enough to breathe normally and stop panicking, he sits there, staring blankly at the grass. He looks _lost._  

“Sasuke?” Kurenai asks.

He hums absently, and she repeats his name until he looks her in the eye. 

“Are you okay now?”

He hesitates before nodding. He doesn't speak. He just sits there, knees to his chest with his arms over his neck, and stares at the ground.

“Are you sure?” she asks him. 

He nods again, softly. She hesitantly puts a hand on his back, and when he relaxes slightly she smiles at him. “Do you want to stay and train? Or would you like to sit out for a while?” There's no response, verbal or non-verbal. Sasuke attempts to stand, though, even if he does fall back down almost immediately. His legs are shaking. Kurenai sighs. “You'll sit out until you're ready, then.”

He snaps his head up to stare at her, the most emotion she's ever seen on the kid present at that very moment, and she isn't sure if it’s good or bad, seeing as that emotion is _fear_.

“You won't earn anything by working when you're not in the ideal physical state. Hayate could tell you all about that. How d’you think he messed up his lungs so much?”

Sasuke hesitates again. 

“I can sit with you until you feel better,” she offers quietly.

He nods, and she helps him stand up and guides him to the edge of the field. She’s a little regretful that she won’t be able to teach any of the genin, but all of that pales in comparison to the urge to _protect_ this boy in front of her.

So they sit down, and she doesn’t say anything when Sasuke leans into her side, only smiles and looks out at the crowd of shinobi on the field.

  

“Teach me,” Sasuke demands, once the training session is well on its way and he’s calmed down enough to be angry.

“Teach you what?” Yūhi asks.

“To be _calm_ like you are. So I can calm myself down like—like you did when I—had that _thing._ I need to be able to shut that off.” Yūhi looks strange. Her expression is like the ones that his father used to give _him,_ and he realizes that it’s—pride? _Why_ in the world would she be _proud_ of him? “Stop looking at me like that. I didn’t do anything.”

“It’s the most you’ve spoken today, even if the circumstances aren’t the best.” Yūhi sighs. “It’s hard to calm yourself down from a panic attack—that’s what those are. You usually won’t be in the right state of mind to do it. Sometimes you need to rely on other people for help, but there are some methods that you could learn.” 

“Then show me,” Sasuke says, getting impatient. “I don’t need anyone else’s help.” 

Yūhi hums. “How about I visit my therapist to get you some informational booklets instead? I know a few, but not well enough to teach you. It would be better if you had advice from a professional. And maybe a few appointments.” 

Sasuke sighs, glancing away in disappointment. “Yeah. Maybe you should've said that first.” 

Yūhi doesn’t speak for almost five minutes. Together they watch the other genin practicing various katas, throwing shuriken, and _learning_ like Sasuke should be doing but _isn’t._ He takes a deep breath and pretends that Yūhi’s warmth next to him isn’t comforting. 

It’s not. 

It’s _not._

But he doesn’t pull away, and that much is enough to leave him feeling hopelessly weak.

“Sasuke, is today—is today the first time you've had a panic attack?” she asks. “Wait, no, you don't have to answer that . . . I suppose what I should be asking is, if you had a panic attack in front of your team and they knew how to help, would you let them or would you push them away?”

Sasuke tenses, fixing his posture before he scoffs. He does not mourn the loss of someone to lean on, absolutely _not_. And he’s only known Yūhi for two days, too, which is even _weirder._ “I _won’t_ let it happen in front of them. So my answer doesn't even matter.”

Yūhi raises an eyebrow. “You don't know that. It happened today, and it might again.”

“ _It doesn't matter_ ,” Sasuke repeats, already preparing for an argument in which _he_ will not give up and neither will _she,_ which means that nobody is happy in the end. What the hell does _she_ know? She doesn't— _nobody_ knows what’ll happen in the future. That doesn’t mean he’s sure it’ll never happen again, but it _does_ mean that he can try his hardest to prevent it. 

(Maybe he'll—go to the library. And look up how to deal with this himself. He doesn't need anyone else. He's _fine_. After he kills Ita— _that man_ , he might have time for other people. Until then . . . )

“Alright,” the woman says, hesitantly.

Sasuke’s train of thought grinds to a halt. It really startles him—the fact that she’d listened so willingly to him and had actually _agreed_ to what he wanted without sucking up to him like he’s some sort of idol. And Sasuke suddenly _feels,_ and he doesn’t really _like_ feeling things, but it’s there and it’s in his face and he’s confronted with the suddenly-appearing and almost violently confusing fact that he _likes_ Yūhi. 

He really genuinely _likes_ her, and for a moment he wishes that _she_ would be his jōnin-sensei instead of Hatake, but it’s silly, so he lets go of that one.

But he can do _something_ right now, so he does.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, and he feels like he’s tripping and stumbling over words that he hasn’t used in so long.

“It’s okay,” Yūhi says quietly. “As long as you can promise me you’re at least trying. You—I don’t know how to put this without sounding weird, but you’re welcome to come talk to me any time. I practically live at Jōnin Headquarters. Tell anyone you know me and they’ll let you in. I just—I worry. Call me a mother hen all you want, but you guys are all—well. Let’s just say that Genma and I are determined to help everyone out.”

Sasuke nods, trying to show her that he understands, and leans into her side again—and, of course, he tries not to feel bad about shutting her down so completely before.

And Yūhi had been right, anyway.

Nobody knows the future, and that’s exactly _why_ Yūhi is right—because it could happen, and it’s honestly probably more likely to happen, what with everything that’s been going on lately.

But Sasuke doesn’t want to _think_ about it, so he attempts to distract himself by watching a short kunoichi with fierce eyes and almost monstrous strength spar with Hinata.

It doesn’t work, but he tries. 

Maybe he will ask her about a therapist later. 

Maybe.

  

It’s only a quarter of the way through the lesson—and everything is going great, by the looks of it, and even though Kurenai wants to join in on it she won’t because she’s got a kid to look after—when they’re joined, almost seamlessly, by Yamanaka Santa and Togeito Tessen.

Tenten immediately latches onto Tessen and his shuriken launcher, which doesn’t surprise Kurenai at _all._ And Santa—well, he does a fine job of pestering Ino into doing some actual training, and the two of them head off to a corner of the field, presumably to practice some clan techniques. 

“I’ll catch you up on all this later!” Kurenai promises, as they all drift away from her and Sasuke. She turns back to him—she’s somehow gotten her arm looped around his shoulder, some and Sasuke looks just a few minutes away from drifting off to sleep—and asks, “Are you feeling okay now?”

The boy blinks, and startles. But he looks more focused than before, and Kurenai counts that as a win. “Yes,” he says. “We should go back to training now. I don’t have any room to fall behind.” 

“Sasuke,” she sighs, “not falling behind is not the only reason you should be training. It’s one of them, yes, and it is a _good_ reason, but what happens when you catch up to your peers? What happens when you succeed in your goals and become _better?_ What would you work for? What would you strive to do? Revenge is on your mind, yes, but what happens when you _get_ revenge? What happens when you’ve trained and trained and trained your whole life away, and then you achieve the only goal you’ve set? Will you lose your purpose?” 

Sasuke crosses his arms, stiffening noticeably, but he doesn’t pull away from her. Kurenai hopes that she hasn’t just crossed a line. 

“I—” he begins, seeming to stumble a bit over his words. “I _will_ kill him. That’s another reason. And it—it doesn’t even _matter,_ okay? It doesn’t matter what happens after that man is gone. Even if I _die,_ that’s okay, because I only have one goal. And I’m—I don’t know. I just—need time to think. I don’t—I never _needed_ more than one goal,” he says, and he sounds _lost._  

Kurenai is quietly horrified. “You shouldn’t just give up,” she says firmly. “You should set other goals. Even if you don’t care about yourself, you can _learn_ to care. And,” Kurenai continues, and she doesn’t even have to hesitate to say this, “ _I_ care about you. Very much, Sasuke.” 

She tries to find other words to say, other things that she can say to get her message across to Sasuke, but all of her words fall short at his expression. The only thing that she can even clearly see—and there are almost _too_ many subtle micro-expressions on Sasuke’s face, too many for her to think about—is _wonder._ And, she thinks, how often has he heard this, if _that_ is his reaction? How often have people failed to tell him they care?

Kurenai tightens her arm around him by just a little, not enough to make him uncomfortable, but enough to remind him of her presence, and then she marvels at how easily he accepts her touches, how he shies away from everyone else but _lets her in,_ and it’s wonderful because it _means_ things, it means that Sasuke is opening up, that Kurenai is getting close, that she has an opportunity to _help_ him— 

“Okay,” he says, and his expression is still creased with the very outer edges of anger. “I’ll—think about it, at least. But I’m not promising anything, okay? No. Just—no.”

Kurenai sighs, again, and idly wonders how much she’s done that today. She takes her arm away from him, only slightly missing the warmth of the boy, and sobers up, saying, “You know, not as many jōnin are as understanding as me.”

Sasuke gives her a look that says _what are you keeping from me,_ and she laughs.

“Okay,” she admits, “I should have elaborated. But I’m going to be blunt, and if you can’t take the criticism, then say so and I’ll keep quiet.”

Sasuke nods. “As if a few words could harm me.”

Kurenai steadies herself, and says, “You’re rude. You have no idea how to talk to your superiors, and someday you’re probably going to get yourself _dismissed_ on grounds of insubordination.”

Sasuke sucks in a deep breath. His eyes are hard, and Kurenai wants to flinch. “I’m—what.”

“Listen, Sasuke,” Kurenai says, as gently as she can. “This morning you just about _ordered_ me to wait outside. I am your superior. That doesn’t mean I won’t give you respect—everyone deserves some respect—but it does mean that _you_ have to give _me_ respect, too. Does that make sense?”

“So I should have asked you to come inside,” Sasuke says flatly, and Kurenai sighs, because has she seriously just lost _all_ of the progress she’s made?

“That’s . . . certainly a start,” Kurenai replies, “but it’s more than just inviting someone inside. It’s being polite to your superiors, it’s taking orders without question, it’s—it’s a lot of things that you need to learn. She shakes her head to clear her mind, relaxes her shoulders, and says, “Now, I believe that you were interested in learning about genjutsu?” 

Sasuke straightens up and nods at her. He doesn’t look so solidly angry anymore, and Kurenai has to marvel at the mood swings that Sasuke must be going through. 

But Kurenai clears those thoughts from her head, too, and smiles at him. “Now, as you’ve probably learned in the academy, there are three—four or five, according to some—types of genjutsu. The major ones, the ones that everyone agree are categories and the ones that are the most widely used, are auditory, visual, and tactile genjutsu. There are a few that may fit outside of these categories, and there are combinations of the three that are extremely effective for winning a battle . . . ”

As she speaks, she can see Sasuke’s interest climbing ever-higher. This was supposed to be a recap of what he’d already—presumably—learned, _not_ something to be paid rapt attention as though it were completely—ah.

“Sasuke,” Kurenai says, interrupting her own explanation of sensory genjutsu, “is this the first time you’ve heard about all this?”

He is silent for a few seconds, and then he nods. Kurenai tries her best to keep a frustrated scowl off of her face, and exhales slowly and deliberately.

“Okay. If you need me to repeat things, or to explain things in more detail, then ask me,” she instructs. “I can teach you a technique after I explain all of this. Are you okay with me using a genjutsu on you?”

Sasuke pauses, and then, he says, “I’m—fine. But you need to explain it to me. I have to—I have to know what it’s going to be like. I have to know—I mean I’d _like_ to know—everything about that. Um.” 

“All right,” Kurenai says. She takes a deep breath in, and out, and then continues on with her explanations, keeping an eye on all the other shinobi in the clearing. “Sensory genjutsu are designed to confuse a chakra sensor’s abilities . . . ”

  

Anko-sensei is _scary._

This is the only thought that is running through Sakura’s head at the moment—well. Actually, no. 

Anko-sensei is _scary,_ and also, she’s _cool,_ and Sakura swears she’s got stars in her eyes whenever she looks over at the woman.

“Your stance is atrocious,” Anko-sensei says to her in passing. “Feet farther apart. Tighten your core muscles. And your left side’s defense is—well, not even sure it has one. Work on it.”

Sakura thinks she might be in love. 

She does what Anko-sensei suggests, and she finds that a lot of the energy she had been focusing on not losing her balance isn’t needed anymore, and she sighs in relief. Quickly, she glances across the field and spots Naruto standing next to Neji. She makes a face, because she doesn’t remember much about him, because he and Tenten and Lee are a year older, but it was common knowledge back then that Hyūga Neji was a big jerk.

She’s not so sure about that now.

He _looks_ mad, yes, but Sakura’s seen enough stress on the faces of her mothers—and on the many civilians in her neighborhood—to know that it’s stress and pressure and weariness that line his face right now, not anger. Or so she hopes.

Sakura considers whether it would be a good idea to sic Naruto on the guy.

On second thought . . . maybe she should do it herself. Between her and Naruto, she’s always been the one with the social skills.

Someone crashes into Sakura, and despite her newly corrected balance, she falls flat on her ass.

“S-sorry, Sakura-san,” they say, and Sakura immediately connects a face and a name to the voice. 

She smiles as genuinely as she can, and gets up. “Hinata! It’s okay. You didn’t hurt me. And just call me Sakura, or Sakura-chan’s fine too, actually. That’s what Naruto calls me. How are you liking Anko-sensei so far? And the training?” 

And gods, hasn’t it been way too long since she’s talked to a girl her age? Ino hardly counts because they’ve drifted apart recently, and Hinata seems like—a really nice person, if Sakura’s being honest. She comes with the added bonus of being one of the rare few people that don’t hate Naruto, so she’s already good. 

“Anko-sensei is . . . i-intimidating,” Hinata confesses.

“Isn’t she?” Sakura says. “But she’s really sure of herself. I wish I was that confident.”

“Me t-t-too,” Hinata says. She’s pressing the tips of her fingers together in what Sakura assumes is a nervous gesture.

“Come on,” Sakura prompts. “Let’s get back to the stances. I hope we get to do some sparring or something. I’d _love_ to see her in action.”

“Yeah,” Hinata says, and then her face turns pink. “Can you—sh-show me the stance again? I forgot—I forgot what she told m-me to do.” 

“Of course!” Sakura says. “So first, you put your legs in this position—is it okay if I touch you?” Hinata nods hesitantly, and Sakura rearranges Hinata's legs. “Make sure they’re not too far apart or too close together, or else you won’t be able to balance properly, and you won’t be able to move at a moment’s notice. Your legs should bend slightly—yeah, like that—hey, you’re a natural at this!” 

“R-really?” Hinata asks, and _seriously,_ being this cute should be illegal—Sakura’s already warming up to the girl, and they’ve been talking for less than five minutes.

She’s just so _adorable._

“Totally!” Sakura insists. “You just fell into the stance after only a few instructions from me. It took me like, ten minutes to get it right, and even more to be able to change stances from this to some kicks.”

“What’s w-wrong with that? Ten minutes is—is a pretty good t-t-time,” Hinata says.

“It’s not so much the time, but it’s that I keep trying to do the academy taijutsu. Anko-sensei said it’s—”

“Weak,” Anko-sensei breaks in, “and only good if you know your opponent is using the same style. Elsewhere? The people you meet are going to fight _dirty._ Hell, _I_ fight dirty. This style is hard-hitting and allows you to take advantage of almost any opening. It’s also a great foundation to base other styles off of—Tsunade started off with this style, if I remember correctly." 

“T-Tsunade-hime?” Hinata asks. “Kurenai-sensei mentioned that she could teach me the style that she used. Is this a—a preparation for it?”

“Right on the money,” Anko-sensei says, and turns to glance over her shoulder at Tenten and some random shinobi with a huge curved weapon in his hands, and then she looks over to where . . . Raidō-sensei, if Sakura remembers correctly, and Shino are doing laps around the field. “I should go see what everyone else is up to. I’ll be back in a few moments!” Anko-sensei grins, and Sakura’s tempted to say that it looks just a little—well, evil. “After that, we spar. Hope you’re ready for some bruises and a few broken bones, if you’re lucky!”

“Broken bones?” Hinata squeaks. 

“For Sakura, maybe. I’ll go easy on you, if that’s what you want. Don’t worry about healing—we’ll have medic-nins look at you and heal you up,” Anko-sensei informs her.

“N-no,” Hinata says firmly. “Please d-don’t go easy on me, A-Anko-sensei. I won’t learn if—if I’m c-coddled by everyone.”

“Good girl,” Anko-sensei says, and ruffles Hinata’s hair. “Work on those stretches. No use sparring if you’re just gonna pull a muscle within the first five minutes, right? Oh, and—it’s Anko, not Anko-sensei. Makes me sound _old._ ” 

Hinata smiles, and Sakura beams. 

“A-Anko it is, then,” Hinata agrees.

“Hey,” Sakura says to Hinata, after Anko has left, “you get to learn _Tsunade-hime’s_ taijutsu style?”

“Y-yes,” Hinata says quietly. “Kurenai-sensei said she’d teach me as much as she could from the style, and that she’d also look around f-f-for someone who knows it b-better. O-only Tsunade has really been able to use it, so a-all the information on it is r-really just textbook st-stuff. And I need to learn chakra c-control exercises, so that I can use it with the taijutsu. Kurenai-sensei told—she told me about it.” 

“Hinata, that’s _amazing,_ ” Sakura exclaims. “You know that this is like, a one-in-a-million chance, right? I’d give _anything_ to learn her style. That’s such a good opportunity. I’m so happy for you!”

Hinata seems to mull over her next words, but eventually, she says, “I c-could—ask Kurenai-sensei if she w-would teach you, too.”

Sakura has to physically restrain herself from hugging Hinata. “Hinata, I could _kiss_ you,” she says, and then, feeling her face turn tomato-red, “Sorry. That was weird.”

“It’s okay,” Hinata says. “But I’m not s-sure if your jōnin-sensei would be okay w-with that.”

Sakura waves a hand dismissively. “He’ll be fine. I mean, he’ll probably be okay with this once we tell him. He’d probably jump onto the chance to be able to train us without actually training us.”

Hinata laughs. “Okay. We should p-probably get to our stretches. Anko will yell at us i-if we don’t.”

“We probably should,” Sakura agrees. “And then you can watch me get thrashed by Anko, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Hinata says. “A-and you can probably watch me completely lose at sparring with her, t-too.”

Sakura laughs, because all of a sudden there are so many possibilities open to her that just _weren’t_ before, so many things she can do now that she’s actually a genin, and then she actually gets to her stretches, because she’s quite honestly scared of what Anko will do if she doesn’t.

  

Kiba slaps Naruto away from Akamaru for the fifth time today. “Stop that,” he snaps. 

“But Akamaru’s so _fluffy,_ ” Naruto whines. 

“Yeah, well, he’s _trying_ to _concentrate._ ”

“On what, that stick?” Naruto asks snarkily.

“Actually, he is,” Kiba says.

“Why?” Naruto asks.

Kiba laughs nervously. “Because he’s, um . . . trying to fetch it! Without me telling him to. It’s called telepathy.”

Naruto sticks his tongue out at Kiba. “Liar. You just don’t want me to touch him.”

“So what? He’s _my_ dog,” Kiba says. “Maybe he just doesn’t want you to put your grubby hands all over him! You ever think about that?” 

“But _look_ at him,” Naruto says, and reaches around Kiba again to attempt to pet Akamaru. “He obviously wants to be petted. And—hey! Jerk. My hands aren’t _grubby,_ whatever that means." 

“It means—well—it means _something,_ ” Kiba says.

Akamaru barks and jumps across Kiba to land in Naruto’s lap.

“You _traitor,_ ” Kiba hisses. “I _trusted_ you!”

Akamaru gives him a pointed look.

“He likes me more,” Naruto taunts.

“Does _not,_ ” Kiba says. 

“Does too.”

“Does not.”

“Does—” 

“Will both of you _shut up,_ ” Genma says. “I’m trying to figure out what to teach you! Do you want to learn something, uh, totally awesome, or whatever will make you interested in learning, I’m not sure what kind of things I should say— _anyway._ Do you want to learn? Or not? Because I can leave. I can leave, and I won’t teach you any cool new ninjutsu or chakra exercises.”

“No!” Naruto yells. “I’ll pay attention! Just . . . let me finish petting Akamaru.”

“That’s it,” Genma says. “Hayate, you’re in, I’m—I’m so done. Kids are awful.”

“I didn’t even do anything,” Kiba says. “Blame _that_ doofus, not me!”

Hayate coughs. “Whatever. Genma, stop dicking around—oh, sorry, language. Stop fooling around. Should we do tree-walking? Kurenai said that’d be a good start for these two. Gods know they need it.” 

Genma nods gravely.

Kiba narrows his eyes. “Tree-walking is shitty,” he decrees. “My mom tried to teach me that a while ago, and it was so boring. We should probably do something else.” 

“But your _chakra,_ ” Genma says. “You won’t be able to do any techniques if you don’t have at least that much control.” 

“No techniques?” Naruto gasps. He sounds horrified, and Kiba has to admit that he feels very much the same way. “No! Kiba, come on, we _need_ to do this tree-walking thing. If I can’t do jutsus, I can’t become Hokage, y’know! Hey, hey, Genma, what’s tree-walking? Yūhi—I mean, Kurenai-sensei explained it to me, but . . . hehe. I kind of forgot.”

“Well,” Genma says, “that’s kind of self-evident. You walk up trees, using your chakra. It’s a great way to expand your reserves. You . . . you do know what chakra is, right?” 

Naruto nods, scoffing. “I’m not an _idiot._ Of course I know. Sakura-chan taught it to me from her academy classes.”

Hayate tilts his head. “From Sakura? Didn’t you learn that in the academy?” 

“Nope,” Naruto says, and Kiba has to wonder how exactly that happened. Luckily—or maybe not—that question is answered. “None of the teachers taught me, and Sakura got _real_ mad when I told her, so she had to teach me about it. I’ve got wind and water affinities! She also taught me how to read. I’m not so good yet, but I’m gonna get better, y’know!” 

“You . . . didn’t know how to read,” Genma says slowly, and Kiba thinks he stinks of barely-suppressed anger. It’s an emotion he smells on—a lot of shinobi, if he’s honest. 

“Um . . . no?” Naruto says. “Is that bad? Nobody just—nobody gave me any books for school? And I don’t have any parents, so, uh, nobody taught me at home until Sakura came along. That’s why my grades were so bad, y’know!” Naruto exclaims, sounding angry instead of uncertain this time.

And Kiba has to agree with him. Nobody—nobody taught him to _read?_ Kiba’s a dumbass, he knows it, but even _he_ can read, and even he knew what chakra was from an early age. 

“Well,” Kiba says, because he feels like he should do _something,_ “we can train together now! And we’re out of the academy, so grades don’t matter. I mean, obviously _I’m_ going to be the Hokage. But you can be, like, my second-in-command.”

Kiba sees Genma visibly relax, and the man doesn’t smell as angry as he did before, so Kiba counts that as a plus. Hayate seems more irritated than angry, but even that has dissipated some. 

“No use crying over spilled milk, then,” Genma says, and Hayate nods. “I still think that that was entirely unfair, but Kiba here is right. We can change that.” 

“Starting with tree-walking,” Hayate adds.

Kiba groans. He had said that tree-walking had been boring, and implied that he knew how to actually do it, but the truth is that he’d skipped out to play with Akamaru because his mom had been and is still _ruthless_ during training, and some days Kiba just isn’t prepared to deal with that. 

Most days.

Okay, all days. 

But he doesn’t have to say that out loud.

“Kiba can start,” Genma says, “since he probably already knows how to do it.” The man smiles, and Kiba growls because he’s been _seen right through,_ damnit. “Don’t you, Kiba?”

“Fine,” Kiba says, and marches up to the tree.

He channels chakra into his feet because he knows at least that much, and besides, it can’t be _that_ hard, and he plants a foot firmly onto the tree—and immediately blasts a chunk of the trunk away from the thing. 

“Ha!” Naruto laughs, once Kiba has finished dusting the wood chips off of his jacket. “You suck at this!”

Akamaru yips from where he is still, annoyingly, sitting in Naruto’s lap.

“Oh, shut up, you two. I just—need practice! Let’s see how well _you_ do, Naruto,” Kiba challenges. 

“Fine. Don’t have a cow when I’m better than you,” Naruto says airily, and Kiba sticks his tongue out at him again. Naruto puts Akamaru down on the grass—gently—and approaches one of the tallest trees on the training ground. 

“Children,” Genma says quietly, leaning in so that he can speak to Hayate only. He’s probably forgotten that Kiba can hear pretty much everything that’s happening right now. “Was I ever like that?”

Hayate shakes his head, lowering his voice as well. “No. Anko probably was. Well—maybe not quite as bad, and she didn’t use petty insults. When she wanted to hurt someone, she made it _hurt_.” 

“Damn right,” Genma says, shuddering exaggeratedly.

“I can _hear_ you, you know,” Kiba says pointedly, turning his attention to them.

“Eh,” Genma says. “No skin off my back. Should I say it a little louder so Naruto can—”

He’s interrupted by a loud _crack._ Kiba winces, because _ow,_ that’s loud, and when he and Genma and Hayate turn to look at the source of the noise, they find that Naruto has managed to create a massive crack running vertically along the tree’s trunk.

“You both used too much chakra,” Hayate says. “Way too much, in Naruto’s case.”

“See if you can channel a little less into your feet, and if that doesn’t work, try channeling an even amount of chakra across your hands too, and kind of—crawl, I guess, up the tree,” Genma instructs.

“Got it,” Kiba says, and gets to work.

He fails to conduct less chakra to his feet at first, so he focuses on channeling that same amount to his hands and his feet, and it actually—works. He’s got half as much chakra going to them now, and it’s much easier to clamber up the trunks now. 

Much easier.

And that, Kiba says to himself, is most certainly not the truth.

He can get halfway up a short tree before he blasts himself off of it and Genma or Hayate has to catch him, which is really embarrassing, and he hopes that nobody sees it. Especially Hinata. He wouldn’t want her to think that he’s incompetent, after all. Or Shino. Neither of them would tease him, but—but still! They probably wouldn’t even _think_ it, but he wants to show them that he _can_ contribute something to the team. 

So he tries at it over and over again until he’s finally sitting in the highest stable branch of a small tree.

“Hey, Naruto,” Kiba calls out, “how are you doing with—ouch.”

He glances over just in time to see Naruto fly backwards from the tree that he had been clinging to with hands and feet, and Hayate moves to catch him, but it’s an awkward catch at a bad angle, so what really happens is Naruto slams into the man full-force. 

“Oof,” the man says, staggering slightly. “What have you been _eating,_ kid? _Bricks?”_

“Ramen,” Naruto says, defensively. “And sometimes stuff that Sakura’s moms make me! Bricks are gross. Don’t eat those, they have a really bad texture.” 

“I don’t really want to know how you know bricks don’t taste good. I hope to the gods you haven’t actually eaten any,” Hayate says, and puts him down gently. “Also—are you really trying to channel less chakra?” 

“Yes!” Naruto says, and he sounds frustrated. Kiba would feel bad if he wasn’t so busy gloating. “It’s not _working!_ As soon as I try to stop getting some chakra out it’s like all my other chakra is like ‘no way’ and just gets all up in my system!” 

“Hold on,” Hayate says, and then he turns in the direction of—is that Ino? Yeah, definitely her, Kiba would recognize that shitty-smelling shampoo anywhere, he _hates_ coconut-scented stuff—and some long-haired dude. “Santa! Get over here.”

The man straightens up and nods to Ino, who stands up from where she’s sitting cross-legged on the ground. The man sends Ino off to where Tenten and some guy with a weirdly huge curved weapon—is it launching shuriken? That’s badass—are just transitioning from talking to target practice. 

The long-haired guy makes his way over to them, and Kiba wonders why the training fields are so big. This one in particular—it’s like it was made for joint training sessions.

Maybe it was.

In any case, it’s a good half a minute before he gets over there, and that’s while he’s jogging.

“Yeah?” The man—Santa, presumably—asks, and Kiba tunes back into the conversation.

“Get a read on this kid. He keeps using too much chakra on the tree-climbing exercise. See the holes in those trees?” Hayate jerks his head toward the decimated tree trunks.

“Wow,” Santa says. “Wow. Okay.” Santa closes his eyes, and then, a few seconds later, he flinches. “Oh, okay. That’s—that is a _lot_ of chakra. Slap a chakra-reducing seal on him and you’re good to go. Strength? Start out weak, and if he needs more, use multiple seals or get a higher-grade one.”

Hayate nods. “Genma, up for a shopping trip?”

Genma shrugs. “Sure. You’ll stay here and make sure they don’t blow the whole field up?”

“Have a little _faith_ in us,” Kiba groans. “It’s Naruto who’d blow it up, not me.”

“Stupid dog-breath! You’re the—the blower-upper here!” Naruto shouts up at him. 

Kiba doesn’t grace him with a response. 

“ . . . Yeah,” Hayate says, and turns back to Santa. “Anything else he should get?”

“I think some shop recently put out some low-grade chakra storage seals—might want to try having Naruto store chakra in those as an exercise, see how much or how little he can put into them without making them blow up. Might help a little with control,” Santa says. 

“Blow up?”

“Oh. No, not explode. This is harmless—they’ll dispel like a shadow clone would. Speaking of shadow clones . . . that’s a jutsu that requires a fair amount of chakra to perform. Why don’t you try teaching that to Naruto? See if you can burn off some of that chakra of his. Swear to _gods,_ the kid’s a veritable _sea_ of chakra. Anyway, I need to go back to bothering—I mean, training, Ino. Later.” 

Genma nods, rifles through his pack—probably to check for his wallet—and _shunshin_ s out of the training ground.

“That’s so cool!” Naruto shouts. “Can we do that? Can we, Hayate?”

“I dunno,” the man says, and coughs. “It’s a hard one for sure.” 

“I can do it,” Naruto promises. “Believe it!” 

“Somehow, I’m not convinced,” Hayate says, and Kiba eventually tunes them out in favor of dropping down from his tree and trying to scale one of the larger ones.

He only makes it about three-quarters of the way up before he has to stop to rest on a branch—and he isn’t even able to climb it with only his feet, yet. He still has to use his hands, so he probably looks like some kind of weird monkey-human hybrid instead of a cool, composed shinobi. Kiba wipes the sweat off his forehead and prepares to climb again. This time, he is stopped because he can’t put out _enough_ chakra, and it’s honestly a bit terrifying. 

So, of course, like any respectable ninja, he sits there like an idiot—and tries to get Akamaru’s attention, but the dog seems hell-bent on ignoring him—until Hayate finally looks up from where he’s finished out-arguing Naruto. 

“Kiba? You good up there?”

“Um,” Kiba says eloquently.

“Can’t tell what’s wrong unless you talk!” Hayate calls up to him.

“I—I don’t . . . really have enough chakra to stick to the branches anymore,” Kiba shouts down, and he is—absolutely _mortified._

“Shit,” Hayate says. “I’ll be right there.” The man quickly sprints up the tree and stops to crouch down on the same branch Kiba’s on. “Do you feel faint? Dehydrated?”

“No,” Kiba answers. “Just—can’t call up as much chakra as I was before. I mean, I’m a little tired.” As if he had called it, a yawn bubbles up from inside of his chest.

“You’re probably getting to the end of your chakra reserves,” Hayate notes. “Let’s take a breather, or else you might find yourself facing chakra exhaustion, which is _never_ good. You want me to carry you down?”

Kiba feels his cheeks heat up. No _way_ is he gonna let himself look weak by being carried down a tree. He tells Hayate as much.

“Your loss,” the man says. “Well, stay here for a while then. Here’s a ration bar. You want any food?”

“Whatcha got?” Kiba asks. He _always_ wants food. “Oh, and tell Akamaru I’ll be there soon. I tried to tell him myself but he’s ignoring me ‘cause I didn’t wanna let Naruto pet him. Gods, sometimes Akamaru has so much attitude. I didn’t give him extra food yesterday and he peed on my sandals. I’m wearing my sister’s right now because I forgot to go buy new ones this morning." 

“They do look a little small on you,” Hayate observes. “I have a few apples. Oh, and some beef jerky.”

“Jerky,” Kiba says immediately, and he’s almost drooling because _beef jerky is the food of the gods._  

Hayate chuckles, and hands the jerky over to him. “Don’t eat it all at once. And maybe do some meditation while you’re up here.” He nods at Kiba and stands up to get back down onto the ground, probably to make sure that Naruto doesn’t damage the training grounds. “And I’ll tell Akamaru you’ll be back soon.”

Kiba munches on the jerky and starts his meditation.

It’s boring and it sucks, and Kiba gives up on it after about ten minutes so that he can eat the bag of jerky with wild abandon, but he _does_ at least try.

  

Tessen has never met anyone else that is as excited about weapons as him—until now, at least. 

“Togeito-sensei,” Tenten says brightly, “show me that again, please!”

Tessen grins obligingly and lets another volley of shuriken fly. “You need to have a lot of arm strength built up to be able to use this thing,” he informs her. “For one, it’s really heavy, and for another, you need to be strong to be able to pull the handle all the way across the thing.”

The shuriken launcher is Tessen’s pride and joy. It’s effective, and powerful, and with just a touch of chakra, aiming is no big deal. The thing is made to be able to hold wind chakra, too, so if the user is wind-oriented, the shuriken will fly so much farther and faster, and optional gusts of wind will accompany them.

It’s good that Tenten has wind chakra, just like him. Tessen’s already considering taking her as an apprentice, and introducing her to the head of hospital, because with the chakra control this girl has, Tessen will be damned if she won’t make great strides in both medical ninjutsu and chakra-enhanced bukijutsu. He’s a little giddy just thinking about it.

“You think _I_ could use something like that someday, Togeito-sensei?” Tenten asks.

“I don’t see why not,” Tessen says. “Let’s see what you’ve got first, though. I’m very interested in your usage of scrolls during combat. Where do you buy them? What kind are they?”

“Oh,” Tenten says, fidgeting. “I, um, made them. Myself. I studied lots of scrolls on sealing in the library, because when I first had the idea to use scrolls, nobody sold exactly what I wanted. So I decided that I had to do it myself.”

“You’ve got a good amount of sense in you,” Tessen nods. “I always say to never trust to other people what you can do yourself.”

“Right?” Tenten says, and she’s suddenly a few steps closer to him than she’d been before. “Trust me, I love Gai-sensei and Lee, but I would _never_ trust them to take care of my weapons or to shop for replacements for me. I made that mistake exactly once, and now I have a huge box full of weapons that are two sizes too small for me to use. I’m going to donate them to the academy so they can use ‘em, but I’ve just been so _busy_ lately." 

“I can go with you to take them today,” Tessen offers. “That is, if you aren’t busy with anything.”

“That would be great,” Tenten says. “I can take them myself, though. I’m strong enough to! Don’t go getting any ideas that I’m weaker just because I’m younger, or a girl!”

“That’s not what I was implying,” Tessen reassures her. “I wasn’t implying anything, actually. It’s just that the academy won’t be able to accept weapons unless they’ve been checked for quality and condition, and for tampering. I can scan them over and be there to inform them that these weapons are good to go.” 

“Oh,” Tenten says, and sighs. “Sorry about that Togeito-sensei! I just wasn’t sure if you—well. Never mind. It’s cool now. Anyway, spar?”

Tessen nods, and readies his launcher, falling into a sparring stance easily. “Ready when you are. No ninjutsu or genjutsu—this is a weapons and taijutsu only fight Don’t hold back on me, and first to yield loses.” 

Tenten smiles at him and picks up the two huge scrolls that she’d brought to the training session. She tosses one up into the air, and Tessen is suddenly glad that they aren’t near any of the other shinobi, because an honest-to-the-gods rain of weapons comes flying down at him. He quickly replaces himself with a clump of grass behind Tenten. 

Tessen shakes off the momentary disorientation that comes with using the technique and lashes out at her with a strong—maybe a little stronger than he had intended, and that’s something _he_ needs to work on—high kick. It catches her in the side but she moves with the kick, minimizing the amount of damage done to her.

“Your focus shifts too slowly,” he criticizes. “Immediately after aiming your weapons, you should focus on the next thing you need to do. In this case, as soon as you saw me disappear, you should have started looking for me instead of just standing there.” He grabs her second scroll, which she’d dropped when he kicked her, and throws it off to the side. He aims his shuriken launcher at her. “And now I’ve taken away your scroll, and I’ve got you cornered." 

“Yield,” Tenten says, almost immediately after he’s finished speaking.

“Good. You at least know not to continue fighting a battle you won’t win. Let me look at your side,” Tessen orders, gently setting his launcher down. “I think I put a little too much force into that kick.” 

“I’m fine, Togeito-sensei,” Tenten insists. “I’ll just have a few bruises. What I need right now is for you to tell me how I could have improved. Where I went wrong.”

Tessen shakes his head. “I admire your ambition, but I really do need to at least check it over. Smart of you, by the way, to go with the kick. I think most kids your age would have panicked or would have tried to hold on and endure it. Which would have been dumb, because I clearly outmatch you. Now. Let me see your side.”

Tenten pulls her shirt up and Tessen kneels down to inspect it. He prods and pokes at her a bit, but is ultimately satisfied that she’ll be fine.

“Okay,” he says. “You were right. All you’ll have is a nasty bruise, maybe for a week or a little longer. But I still had to check. Don’t give me that look. As long as you’re learning under me, I’m gonna have to look out for you.” 

Tenten nods hurriedly, and Tessen suppresses a chuckle. “Cool,” she says, after they’ve both gotten to their feet. “Now please tell me what I did wrong.”

“First off, I’m going to start with what you did right. This was a very short spar, but I still feel the need to analyze,” Tessen says. “Your scrolls are nice. To be able to store that many weapons in them is no small feat, and if you had been sparring against someone your rank, I bet you'd have won with that first huge round of weapons. Very nicely done. This is mostly due to the fact that hardly any genin know how to use the substitution jutsu; it’s generally regarded as a jōnin-level jutsu because you need to use more chakra the farther away you are from whatever you want to switch with, and you need a fair bit of control, too. It’s an easy out, though, once you know it." 

“What can I do to prevent someone who knows about it from getting the upper hand?” Tenten asks, and Tessen has to commend her for getting right to the heart of the problem without complaining that he’s being too harsh.

“Well, there are a few things you can do. You can expand the range of the weapons until it becomes impractical for someone to substitute themselves for an item so far away, or you could create a smoke screen using weapons that aren’t real. It’s easy to make shadow weapons—similar to shadow clones, but they’re just shuriken, kunai, and the like. If they are projected quickly and with enough force, they dispel and create a puff of smoke when they come in contact with a solid surface. Easy to make, but with the amount of weapons you put into a scroll, you’ll need to prepare them beforehand. If you’re a sensor-nin this works even better, since you’ll know exactly where the enemy is but they won’t know where you are. If you’re not, you’ll only have an extremely rough idea of where they are, and you’ll need to fight blind. I’d personally go for the first one.”

“Yeah,” Tenten agrees. “Wow, you know a lot about this kind of thing, don’t you?”

“That I do,” Tessen says. “You get to know a lot when you’ve been tokujō rank for going on five years now. Oh, I just thought of something—you could imbue the weapons you use with chakra. It’d help with going through stuff, like—uh, shit, let me think about how to say this. It . . . would greatly improve the force of your weapons, and it might let you power through jutsu other people use. You could seal wind chakra into your scroll so that it lets out a burst of wind, too.”

“Why would I need to do that?” she asks.

“Well, think about it,” Tessen says. “If you send a huge volley of kunai and shuriken—and whatever else you use, I haven’t gotten the chance to look at it all yet but that is a _lot_ of stuff—at someone, they might answer you with a huge jutsu of some other kind. What if someone sent a really strong blast of wind at you? Would that render your weapons useless?” 

“It probably would,” Tenten says. “So you’re saying that infusing my weapons and scrolls with chakra could—could fix this?”

“It wouldn’t be a perfect solution,” Tessen admits. “You don’t have the biggest reserves, so you wouldn’t be able to put that much chakra into anything—I would focus on making a scroll compatible with chakra so that you can charge it with wind chakra, or get your teammates to charge it with a different kind if they can—”

“Ah,” Tenten interrupts. “Lee can’t really use chakra at all, and Neji is wind-type like me. I think Gai-sensei might have earth chakra, but . . . it’s hard to tell with him, and I’m not sure that spraying dirt out with my weapons would be the best idea.” 

“Probably not,” Tessen agrees. “So you can ask your teammate, Neji, to help you with wind chakra, and maybe you can find a jōnin with fire chakra to help you out. I think that fire would work, as well as lightning—but lightning is a rare affinity here, so your best bet is fire.”

Tenten nods pensively. “I’ll think about that, Togeito-sensei. Thank you.” 

He nods, and picks up a water bottle to hand to Tenten. “No problem. If you ever need help with that, or if you ever feel like showing me what you’ve done and getting some feedback, I’m always up for it. And . . . you’ll need this. Wouldn’t be good for you to get dehydrated, yeah?”

Tenten accepts the water graciously, and Tessen gets out a bottle for himself. It’s _hot_ out.

After downing the whole bottle in one go, Tenten claps and straightens up. “Okay! Enough break. I need to go pick up my weapons—can we work on target practice after this? I still need to improve my aim with my scrolls, and also—I need to think of a way to clean them up that doesn’t take half an hour, because I really, _really_ don’t have the funds to keep buying new weapons. That, and I think everyone would be pissed off at me if I left hundreds of weapons lying around everywhere.”

“I don’t see why not,” Tessen says, and moves to help her pick up the numerous weapons scattered all around. “I’ll help you.” 

“Thanks,” Tenten says, and gets to work gathering her stuff. She straightens up, like an idea had just come to her. “Togeito-sensei?”

“Yes?” he asks.

“Your given name is Tessen, right?” 

“Yes.” 

“So . . . do you use fans?”

Tessen sighs heavily, because nobody’s made that joke in a while, but it’s still _tiresome._ “Yes, I use fans occasionally. They’re good for wind chakra users.”

Tenten snickers, and then stops up short. “Hey. I’m wind-oriented. Could you teach me how to use them?”

Tessen shrugs. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t. But first, we clean. Then, we review. And maybe after we’ve had a good number of training sessions together and I get a feel for your areas of expertise, I can introduce you to fans. But we won’t keep at them if you’re not fit to wield them.”

“Of course not,” Tenten says, and it’s a promise.

  

“That,” Aoba says, over his fourth cup of coffee, “was entirely exhausting. Probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’m just glad they were all tired enough to have just gone _home._ I couldn’t have survived an actual dinner at an actual restaurant. My wallet? Would’ve been decimated. _Ugh._ ”

“You ever tried to get the Inuzuka boy out of a tree?” Genma asks testily. “No? Then you’re not in a position to say anything.” 

“Oh yeah? Ever tried to have a conversation with the Aburame kid, Shino?” Raidō counters. “Because you can’t. He’s a great learner, took to speed exercises like a fish in water. But he’s quiet. Too quiet. Ran five laps around the field in dead silence. I didn’t push him after a few failed conversation starters, but I’ll do it one day. _One day._ I will have a real conversation with him,” Raidō promises.

“Try talking to Ino about important Yamanaka techniques when all she wants to so is gossip. I am _so_ tired of hearing about Mariko-san’s husband’s son’s wife’s illegitimate kid, or whatever,” Santa says. He’s got his head in his hands. “Absolute despair.”

Maruten shrugs, pouring some tea into a mug for himself. “Tessen took over with Tenten pretty early on, but I would’ve loved to work with her. She does some fine work with weapons. Chōji’s an easygoing kid, always has been, really. Shikamaru, on the other hand . . . I lost track of how many times I had to tell him to actually practice things. Maybe we need to drag a Nara into this mess. Maybe it takes one to know one. I don’t know. But if I ever see another cloud again, it’ll have been too soon.”

“Where’s Tessen?” Santa asks suddenly.

“Oh. He told me that he’s helping Tenten donate some weapons to the academy. He needs to inspect them for quality or whatever—he’ll be back a little later than usual,” Hayate says.

“Cool,” Santa replies, and that’s pretty much that.

Kurenai, from where she’s sprawled out on Asuma’s lap, yawns widely. “Sasuke isn’t so bad. He just needs . . . a lot of work. And I mean a lot. But I want to help the kid. Naruto’s got a friend in Sakura at least, and her mothers are apparently very fond of him.”

“Lucky you,” Asuma says. “I was with Lee and Neji, with Gai. I’m gonna have nightmares. So much youth. So . . . so much.” 

“Youth is never a bad thing!” Gai exclaims, standing up from his chair. “You are simply not feeling Konoha’s fire! Have my students not instilled a sense of camaraderie and springtime in your heart?” 

“You know what?” Asuma asks, running a hand through Kurenai’s hair, and Anko is _not_ jealous at all, and she certainly doesn’t wish she was there stroking Kurenai’s hair instead. “I’m not really feeling it. Sorry, Gai. I just—I can’t. Have you tried to talk to Neji?” 

“Sadly, he will not open up to me about his current plights, whatever they may be! I fear they are related to his clan, but I will not pry. That would not be hip _or_ cool!” Gai says loudly.

“Still a pain in the neck,” Asuma says.

Anko, for one, does not sympathize with _any_ of them. She gets up because she’s been away from Kurenai all day, damnit, she deserves this, and sits next to Asuma on the couch. “Let’s do it again sometime!” she enthuses. “I love the Hyūga girl, and the civilian-born one! Haruno, that’s her name. They’re great, and they’re gonna be _terrifying_ when they grow up.” 

She’s met with a chorus of groans, but nobody really protests.

“But have you ever tried to beat Naruto in an argument?” Hayate asks, after the noise dies down. Anko suppresses a bodily wince, because she _saw_ the damn thing take place. And it was not pretty. “He was begging me to teach him to perform the body flicker technique.”

Silence descends upon the group like vultures. Nobody, it seems, can top that.

Anko is about to voice her thoughts on how he could have handled that differently—with a few well-placed explosive tags and some good old-fashioned _yelling,_ probably—when the door to HQ pops open and Hatake walks in.

Anko’s surprised that he doesn’t use the window.

He looks around the room mildly. “What’s the occasion?” he asks.

Anko shrugs. “It was just Kurenai and me at first, but people started coming in and not leaving. Occasion, anyone? Wanna make one up?”

“No one’s got a night mission today,” Genma offers. “To a good night’s sleep?” 

“Why not,” Anko says, and casually rests a hand on top of Kurenai’s head, batting Asuma out of the way while she does it. “Occasion, Hatake, is that we’re all sleeping through the night.”

“You have fun with that,” Hatake says, and turns right back around to leave. 

“Not even gonna have any coffee?” Anko calls out through the door that has been left open. And it’s _irksome,_ because did no one ever teach that man to close doors?

“Nope,” he says, over his shoulder, and the shinobi at the HQ are all quiet until he’s gone. 

“Oh, well,” Aoba says, at long last, and pours himself another cup. “More for me, I guess.”


	3. whoops

so uhhhh hi! listen. i uhhhhhh. about this fic,,,,,, it’s officially discontinued. whoops! ofc there’s always a CHance i’ll continue it someday but, like, it’s super unlikely and seriously don’t get your hopes up. all the fics i worked on w my ex have been stressing me out wayyy too much to continue LMAo so! don’t get pissed my dudes! have a fun life! and stuff! oh also this fic has impossible standards i Cannot live up to fuck you [redacted] for leaving me alone with it how the hell am i supposed to live up to your godliness :((

**Author's Note:**

> note: the first two chapters were written with [falterth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/falterth), but they left the collab and didn’t wish to keep their name on as author
> 
> if youre lgbt and wanna talk to HUMANS about STUFF in this lgbt naruto discord server tHAT I AM IN,,,,,,[here's the post](http://torisshuno.tumblr.com/post/183616385876/hi-im-giorno-and-this-is-my-lgbt-naruto-server) the creator made about the server+the link!!!!


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